Morning:
8°c
F&C stake to be handed to investors
17 Mar 2009Friends Provident has long been unsure what to do about its 52% stake in F&C Asset Management — it put it up for sale last year, but recently abandoned the process.
The effect of having it on the balance sheet has lately been to incur writedowns. The insurer took a £264 million hit for “impairment of intangible assets” and another £154 million loss as a result of failings at the F&C Commercial Property Trust. Friends has now decided to distribute its holding in F&C to investors later on this year. That will raise talk that Friends is looking for a new money manager, though it claims to be happy with F&C's performance.
A new holding company on top of the group will be put in place to manage the demerger. Shareholders will be asked to give the nod to the move.
