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 m

Published July 15, 2011 Updated July 15, 2011 12:55pm

1 min

By Muhammad Iqbal

Add BRecorder as a trusted
source on Google

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.

Read Comments