Duncan Jarrett, Aegon’s managing director of retail, has announced he will retire at the end of June, after 30 years at the provider.
Mark Till will take over Mr Jarrett’s responsibilities on top of his existing responsibilities as managing director for customer value management.
Mr Till’s responsibilities will include the recently-acquired BlackRock Defined Contribution platform business.
Aegon UK chief executive Adrian Grace said Mr Jarrett had “made a significant difference to our organisation and the people within it”.
“Personally, I have never worked with a more committed, loyal and professional colleague than Duncan. On behalf of Aegon, I’d like to wish Duncan all the very best for his retirement.”
Mr Grace said Mr Till, who joined the firm in 2015, had “already made a significant contribution to the business.”
“We’ve made our commitment to building the best platform for advisers and employers clear and I believe that Mark is well placed to run the sales, marketing and digital user experience activities that are critical to achieving that goal,” he said.
The exit was announced just hours after Legal & General revealed it has bought a £3bn annuity portfolio from Aegon.
Initially, the transaction has been structured as a reinsurance contract, covering about 27,000 in-payment policyholders, who will remain customers of Aegon until the transfer gains regulatory and court approval.
L&G has chosen not to reinsure the longevity risk in relation to this transaction.
As a result of the deal Aegon stated annual capital generation from its UK operations will be reduced by about £30m, while underlying earnings before tax are expected to be reduced by about £16m a year.
The reinsurance transaction is expected to result in a loss of about £215m for Aegon, which will be reported as part of ‘other charges’ in the second quarter of 2016.
Martin Bamford, managing director of Informed Choice, said Aegon had fallen out of favour with advisers in recent years.
“We used to have regular contact with them, but over the last five years they haven’t been front and centre,” he said.
He said the advice market had moved away from traditional life insurance products in favour of wrap platforms, a trend that Aegon had resisted.
Carl Lamb, managing director of Almary Green Investments, agreed, saying Aegon had “gone off the boil” and that he had stopped using them four years ago.
“They wanted to put everything on their platform, and that’s not what we wanted,” he said.
