Friends Provident Group, since last summer owned by Resolution, is to buy its German distribution partner.
The life and pensions business will acquire Financial Partners Business AG (FpB) for an undisclosed sum, it was announced earlier this month.
Friends Provident has worked exclusively with FpB, which has assets of €9.7m, since 2007 to distribute its products to brokers and financial advisers in Germany.
In a statement, Resolution said Friends Provident had been in talks to acquire FpB during the course of 2009, and that the Friends Provident Group board had agreed the terms of the deal ahead of Resolution’s acquisition of Friends Provident earlier this year.
The purchase will help to secure Friends Provident’s distribution arrangements in the German market, Resolution noted.
Trevor Matthews, Friends Provident chief executive, said: "Our expectations of the business in Germany have been surpassed and we are pleased to have found in the FpB AG a strong and successful partner with whom we intend to expand our long-term business."
Resolution, Clive Cowdery’s Guernsey-based, FTSE 100-listed acquisition vehicle, finally reached agreement to buy Friends Provident in August, two years after attempting to merge it with an earlier incarnation of Resolution.
