Pearl beats Standard life to acquire Resolution for £4.98 billion
17 November 2007

UK insurance firm Resolution Plc's largest shareholder Pearl Assurance has beaten its British rival Standard Life's bid of £4.6 billion to acquire Resolution for £4.98 billion.

Five days earlier Standard Life had announced pulling out of the fray.

The Resolution-Pearl deal creates a group with combined assets under management of £85 billion, and ranking among the UK's top 10 life insurers.

In July this year, Resolution had initially intended to merge with fellow insurer Friends Provident, creating a new entity, Friends Financial Group, with a market capitalisation of £8.6 billion in an all-share deal (See: British insurers Friends Provident and Resolution to merge) but abandoned the plans after Pearl and Standard Life entered the fray.

Pearl, which is backed by investment companies Sun Capital Partners and TDR Capital, also increased its stake in Resolution to 25.9 per cent after Standard's bid.

Earlier Resolution's board had backed Standard Life's bid, till Pearl came up with its latest offer of 720 pence a share in cash against Standard Life's cash-and-shares bid worth 715 pence and up 4.2 per cent from its last offer.