Included in its full year financial results that were released on Friday, Standard Life Aberdeen announced the sale of its UK and European life insurance business to Phoenix Group in a cash and shares deal.
Standard Life Aberdeen will retain its UK retail platforms and advice business.
The spokesperson told IA that the company has no plans to drop the “Life” part of Standard Life Aberdeen, stating that the business “retains control” of the Standard Life brand.
Hong Kong
The deal includes the UK, German and Irish operations, plus a small number of customers in Austria.
It does not include Standard Life’s Hong Kong business, which is in the process of being sold to its Chinese joint venture partner.
The sale of Heng An Standard Life Insurance Company was announced in March 2017 and, at the time, it was expected that it would take a year and a half to complete.
Standard Life’s spokesperson said the assumption at present is that there will be no impact on the Hong Kong business or its sale as a result of the deal with Phoenix.
“In terms of all of the other international offices, they are part of our Aberdeen Standard Investments business and the deal doesn’t impact those locations.”
Standard Life transformation
Standard Life Aberdeen chair Gerry Grimstone said: “The transaction completes our transformation to a capital light investment business, a process started in 2010 with the sale of Standard Life Bank, continuing with the sale of our Canadian business and the merger last year between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management.”
In a separate statement Phoenix Group’s chief Clive Bannister, said the deal “establishes Phoenix as the pre-eminent closed life fund consolidator in Europe with more than 10 million policyholders and supports a significant increase in Phoenix’s cash generation”.
Bannister added that Standard Life Aberdeen had chosen to become its largest shareholder with a holding of 19.99%.
Completion of the acquisition is expected during the third quarter of 2018.
