Aegon is not looking to sell its stakes in national advice firm Origen or adviser network Tenet, although the provider’s UK chief executive admitted that he would not turn down a “shed load of cash” for either.
Adrian Grace told FTAdviser that the group has no problem holding onto the businesses, both bought into before his tenure began, as they both had separate boards.
“We’re not proactively looking to sell, but we’ll occasionally have conversations about it and I certainly wouldn’t turn down a shed load of cash for either of them.”
The firm does have form, having off-loaded its network Positive Solutions to Intrinsic Financial Services for £9.5m last year, with Mr Grace stating in April that they “never worked out” how the business “fitted with what we are trying to do”.
Earlier this year he said that Aegon would not be following its Edinburgh-based rival Standard Life into the advice market, adding today (13 August) that it still has no intention of competing with those they already serve.
Back in 2013, the provider vowed to support Origen until 2015, when it was expected to hit profitability, however it is currently the subject of a Section 166 review into enhanced transfer value recommendations and posted a pre-tax loss of £1.1m in 2014.
Mr Grace was also happy to report that staff numbers are up by around 300 on where the company was nine months ago - having ruled out any more redundancies to follow the almost 3,000 job cuts made since he arrived with a digital vision for Aegon.
The new hires were mostly to support a fast-growing platform business and to meet demand for the new options presented by the April at-retirement reforms.
As this morning’s second quarter results showed, total assets under management for the platform’s drawdown product more than doubled in a year, up 18 per cent from the first quarter of this year.
As with most pension providers, rising drawdown sales masked sales falling elsewhere, with Mr Grace stating that one is replacing the other at a “rapid and irrevocable pace”, which is one of the reasons Aegon is so proud of being the first to get a ‘third way’ combination product onto its platform.
This Secure Retirement Income product leverages Aegon’s US annuity expertise to satisfy demand for something which keeps an element of investment with some form of guarantee. Mr Grace said that their focus will be on this innovation and has high hopes for adviser sales going into the second half.
peter.walker@ft.com
