Friends Provident

 

Well, the deal is done and the dust has settled. Friends Provident has moved from a Quaker founded mutual Insurance and Investment Company, to being an independent quoted company to now being part of the Resolution Group. Friends Provident‘s link to its own Stewardship brand is also fast disappearing after it sold of its majority stake in F&C, the fund managers that run the Stewardship funds.

 

So far, we haven’t noticed any change in service levels or investment returns, but these may well be early days. Now that Friends Provident is part of a larger group whose focus appears to be greater consolidation of the insurance and investment industry, perhaps the real losers from all this activity might be the staff of Friends Provident who might be at the sharp end of the rationalisation.

 

We’d like to reassure clients with Friends Provident policies that we are carefully monitoring the position with regard to the overall ethical values of Friends Provident and the subcontracted investment management of the Stewardship funds by F&C. If we felt that client interests were being threatened, then we would act immediately to protect the interest of our clients; getting Friends Provident (Resolution) and F&C back on track or, ultimately, moving our clients plans to another provider.