Royal London, the largest mutual life assurance, pensions and investment company in the UK, has resurrected talks to buy its rival LV=.
Royal London first publicly threw its hat into the ring for up for sale fellow mutual LV= in December, but the 179-year-old Liverpudlian mutual’s management preferred to sell out to private equity firm, Bain Group, only for the mutual society’s members to put the kibosh on that idea.
Now Royal London is back at the negotiating table hoping to create a merged entity that will “provide UK consumers with a great customer-owned alternative to the rest of the insurance and long-term savings market, which is almost universally shareholder-owned”.
Royal London offered the usual caveat that there is no guarantee the discussions will lead to an offer being made.
Meanwhile, LV=, or Liverpool Victoria Financial Services Ltd as it is officially known, announced a big rejig of its board, including a new chair, Seamus Creedon, who will take over on 1 April.
Creedon said: "We share a common interest with Royal London in a healthy and vibrant mutual sector so that we can both compete fairly with shareholder-owned firms.
"We have had, and continue to have, discussions with Royal London about if and how we can co-operate to the benefit of both sets of members and the mutual sector."