Phoenix cashes in £117m from Axa purchase

Closed book provider Phoenix has said integrating the recently-bought pensions and protection businesses from Axa has generated more than £117m (€135m, $143m) in cash.

International Adviser

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Phoenix announced it would buy Axa Wealth’s non-platform pensions and investments business along with SunLife, its direct protection business in May, after the French life company set out plans to leave the UK life and savings market.

The £375m buyout was given regulatory approval in October and completed on 1 November.

Axa’s restructure also included the sale of its Isle of Man-based offshore investment bonds business to Life Company Consolidation Group (LCCG) in April and its UK platform business Elevate to Standard Life.

Axa Isle of Man has since rebranded as international life company Utmost Wealth Solutions.

In a trading update on Tuesday, Phoenix said it has generated £117m in cash from the “integration of the Axa Wealth pensions and protection businesses”, and helped the company achieve its target of making £486m in cash in 2016.

“Furthermore, Phoenix reiterates its expectation that it will generate a total of at least £250m of cash from the integration of the Axa businesses within six months of completion of the acquisition,” the company statement added.

In order to fund the Axa purchase, Phoenix said it took out £182m of bank debt, which was repaid in December.

In September last year, the company also struck a deal to buy Abbey Life from Deutsche Asset Management, with the acquisition expected to bring an additional £10bn of assets under management and approximately 735,000 policyholders to Phoenix.

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