British insurance take-over specialist Resolution said it had held fruitless talks with Phoenix about buying the company, while a newspaper reported Phoenix could also get bids from reinsurer Swiss Re and buyout firm CVC. "Resolution confirms that whilst it did investigate the possible acquisition of Phoenix Group with both Phoenix and its lending banks, these talks have now terminated," Resolution said in a statement.
The Sunday Times had reported that Resolution was close to clinching a 1.2 billion pound ($1.9 billion) all-share take-over of Phoenix, representing a 40 percent premium to its closing price on Friday.
Reinsurer Swiss Re, whose Admin Re unit specialises in buying insurers such as Phoenix that are closed to new customers, is also interested in bidding, as is buyout firm CVC, according to the Sunday Times.
CVC, which owns home, motor and travel insurer Acromas, and last year joined forces with rival Apollo to buy non-life insurer Brit, declined to comment, as did Phoenix.
Swiss Re could not immediately be reached.
Resolution, founded in 2008 by entrepreneur Clive Cowdery to buy weak life insurers and merge them into a profitable whole, had said in February that it would focus more on integrating its existing acquisitions than on looking for new ones as it prepares to sell its enlarged life business by 2014.
The company has so far bought life insurer Friends Provident, most of Axa's British operations, and BHA, a unit of private health insurer BUPA.
Taking over Phoenix would have brought back under Cowdery's control a group of closed life funds that he sold for almost 5 billion pounds in 2007 to Pearl, an earlier incarnation of Phoenix backed by financier Hugh Osmond.
Phoenix, created from a complex restructuring of Pearl last year, remains burdened by over 2 billion pounds in debt incurred to finance that deal.
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