Annuities specialist Just Retirement has announced its intention to follow in the wake of rival Partnership and float on the London Stock Exchange, in an offer that will be worth more than £300m.
The global offer will comprise the sale of new ordinary shares, equivalent to approximately £300m, by the company and a partial sale of existing ordinary shares held by the group’s existing principal shareholder, Avallux S.à r.l., the management team and other minority shareholders.
The annuity provider said it expects “continued growth in its core markets” and intends to allocate the proceeds from the issue to “strengthen regulatory and economic capital ratios” and support growth in new business.
In addition, the proceeds will also grow group solvency and liquidity, Just Retirement said.
In August Just Retirement announced it had achieved “record” annual total group sales of £1.65bn, up 12.9 per cent on the previous year, for the 12 months to the end of June.
Just Retirement’s intention to float is in the wake of annuity provider Partnership Assurance Group completing a successful initial public offering in June 2013.
In June, Partnership valued its ordinary shares at 385p per share, constituting a £558m offering. In August, the firm reported a total operating profit of £59.3m for the first half of this year, up 31 per cent from £45.4m for the start of 2012.
Rodney Cook, chief executive of Just Retirement Group, said: “We continue to see strong underlying growth in our core markets of Individually underwritten annuities and equity release lifetime mortgages as the growing population of retirees continues to be challenged by falling state provision, low savings rates and a desire to maintain their lifestyle in retirement.
“Our unrivalled proprietary intellectual property and sector leading service proposition have provided retirees with over £300m of additional retirement income, representing an average income enhancement of 20 per cent to 25 per cent relative to standard writers, and helped them to have a more comfortable retirement by releasing over £1.5bn of equity from their homes.
“This IPO enables Just Retirement to capitalise on the expected continued strong growth in new business, strengthens our regulatory and economic capital ratios and better positions us to accommodate future regulatory changes.”
