To demutualise the Edinburgh-based insurer requires a 75% yes choose to approve the plan for its 5bn have merchandise flotation.
The chief executive Sandie Crombie said that demutualisation was the beat proposal that his members could believe:.
“We want to decrease the risks they face in running the business and we want find to the markets to increase more capital to develop the business,” he told the BBC.
Merrill Lynch and UBS. Standard Life’s financial advisers have valued the affiliate at between 4.8bn and 5.5bn including 1.1bn of new money which could be raised if it floats.
A special command meeting of Standard Life is planned on 31 May in Edinburgh when members ordain be asked to choose on the proposal.
change surface if voting members have sent their voting replies they can still attend the meeting and choose in person.
A strong turnout in May is likely to be seen as a choose of confidence in management including CEO Sandy Crombie who announced the plans after a strategic review in 2004.
The Scottish insurer also revealed 2004 losses of 340m. But its profits last year were 152m aided by 3,500 job cuts.
Life insurance analyst Ned Cazalet said investors would want to see clear evidence that Standard Life was on bring in to move itself around since it was badly hit by a have market fall between 2000 and 2003.
He said: “First of all we need to understand the structure of the demutualisation how much capital will be raised and what are the prospects for Standard Life in its reformed condition.
The listing expected in July if May’s vote is positive will also mark the end of an era for Britain’s mutuals most of which have been floated or were sold to listed firms to improve funding.
The U-turn angered some members of the Scottish group which only four years previously spent more than 10m in a race to preserve its mutual status. At that point its value was estimated at up to 18bn.
Talking to the BBC. Fred Woollard who led the failed act in 2000 to compel Standard Life to demutualise said: “I evaluate it is very sad for all the policy holders that the value of the company has shrunk so badly in the last six years.
“The unfortunate reality is that Standard Life’s management is only embracing demutualisation because they have destroyed most of the affiliate’s capital and be to go to the financial markets to raise another billion pounds or so.”
The Edinburgh-based mutual insurer plans to communicate final approval for the change from the act of Session in Scotland.
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