Member Article

Aviva to shut newly-acquired Friends Life London head office as integration continues 'at pace'

Aviva has announced plans to close the London head office of recently-acquired Friends Life in an attempt to speed up the integration process.

The British insurance company acquired Friends late last year in a £5.6bn deal.

The closure, which is being led by Aviva chief executive Mark Wilson, is part of the company’s plans to integrate Friends Life ‘at pace’ as the insurance firm moves to a smaller premises in Exeter.

Wilson, who brought in more than two years ago from Asian rival AIA <1299.HK> with the task of restructuring the company, said the company’s turnaround was ahead of schedule.

He told reporters today: “This is a satisfactory set of results, in particular our UK businesses have performed well,

“We have started (the Friends Life) integration at pace.”

The Friends acquisitions is expected to generate £225m in annual cost savings by the end of 2017, Wilson noted: “We’ll be disappointed if we didn’t get at least that figure,”

The merger, which saw the formation of a UK market leader in life insurance with 16 million customers, resulted in the value of new business growing 14 percent to £24m on the previous year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .