AbFab

3 May 2006

The insurance group only recently failed to buy Standard Life. Now it is trying to buy another larger entity Abbey s life business. Why is it being so aggressive? Simple. Its mission is to roll up unwanted UK life businesses. To do that it needs to stay ahead of rivals.

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Resolution Life is in exclusive talks with Banco Santander about buying the Spanish bank's life assurance operations in the UK, which it acquired from Abbey National two years ago.

The news comes weeks after Standard Life rejected a £6bn approach from the UK insurance group.

The Santander businesses, which include open and closed funds, have an embedded value of about £3.7bn.

Resolution, which has a market capitalisation of £2.3bn, would fund the acquisition with a mixture of cash and debt.

Pearl Group, the UK life group controlled by Hugh Osmond, said it would also be interested in acquiring the Abbey businesses.

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