Cowdery eyes US and Europe in latest ventures

Industry leader Clive Cowdery has set his sights on Europe and the US for his latest ventures, after recently stepping down from the board of Resolution.

Cowdery, famous for his business model which involves buying and merging life insurance companies that no longer offer new business to make substantial savings, believes that the UK market is now “done”.

"The UK market is consolidated, it's done," he said in an interview with Reuters.

The comments followed his announcement that Resolution Group’s US venture, Resolution Life, is about to buy Nebraska-domiciled Lincoln Benefit Life from Allstate Corporation for around $600 million. The deal is the first for Resolution Life which was set up last year.

Cowdery also revealed that he expects to raise future capital for the US venture’s acquisitions by going public.

Meanwhile he discussed his plans for Europe, saying that he had teams in Europe setting up a similar venture, which would look to benefit from the consolidation across borders of European standards which will be introduced as a result of Solvency II.

Cowdry will look to raise capital for the venture towards the end of the year.

Resolution Group, which has been rebranded as Friends Life Group, reported a 59 percent increase in pre-tax operating profit of £436 million in its 2013 results.