Royal London in talks to buy Coop units
LONDON: Royal London, Britain's biggest mutual insurer, is in exclusive talks to buy the life insurance and asset management operations of customer-owned Cooperative Financial Services.
The discussions will continue while Royal London carries out due diligence, the two companies said in a joint statement on Friday.
The talks come nine months after CFS' parent, the mutually-owned Cooperative family of businesses, appointed Deutsche Bank to review options for its life insurance arm.
The CFS units have 2 million customers and about 20 billion pounds in assets under management.
CFS plans to shed 670 financial advisor roles as part of a deal under which French insurer Axa will provide financial advice through Coop branches, it said in a separate statement.
CFS chief executive Neville Richardson said the group was exploring a sale of the life and funds units because they faced rising regulatory costs and were too small.
Royal London earlier this month completed a merger with smaller mutual Royal Liver.
Copyright Reuters, 2011
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