Aviva and Friends Life Merger

Mita

I'm 57 in April and am looking to raise a bit of extra cash so am thinking of taking the 25% lump sum from my Friends Life pension (which would give me approx £9500). I would leave the rest in the this pension plan and am not planning to touch it until nearer my retirement age of 66.

However, I've just noticed that there's a prospective Aviva/Friends Life merger on the horizon so would it be in my interest to leave all the money in the plan for the moment? Am I likely to benefit from this merger in terms of shares/pension increase etc? Please advise.

Many thanks

By the way, I do have two other pension plans which I aim to leave until retirement age.

dunstonh

However, I've just noticed that there's a prospective Aviva/Friends Life merger on the horizon so would it be in my interest to leave all the money in the plan for the moment?

It will have no impact.

Am I likely to benefit from this merger in terms of shares/pension increase etc?

no

agarnett

I think the OP's questions deserve better answers than that, dunstonh.

Friends Life have invested nothing in systems and as far as we know don't seem to have invested anything for the benefit of customers - EVER! They've invested plenty for the gratification of their own greed, as the ridiculous reams of bumpf I have collected over the years surely testify.

Clearly they have continued in recent years to invest enormous amounts (of our funds or theirs??) in changing the names of all the funds and messing about with the fund and organisational structures in order to create a labyrinth which even their own customer services staff are totally ignorant of.

Friends Life were of course the first company in 2001 in the guise of "AXA" to get their dirty mitts on a large chunk of the inherited estate in With Profits funds (in which many pensions are invested) which previously belonged 90% to policyholders. Any policyholders who naively took the paltry bribes offered in 2001, and signed away their rights to inherited estate, will have missed out on significant additional bonuses since then with more due soon. I say significant because already those bonuses have typically been 10 times the bribes offered, and there is supposed to be a new bonus calculated every 5 years for those of us who said such things as "stick your bribe where the AXA Sun Life Equity and Law no longer shines and dare to change anything regarding our funds at your peril you crooks".

Aviva are the other company who dared to put their greedy dirty mitts on inherited estate 7 years later. Same sort of paltry bribes and missed out bonuses for those who accepted bribes scenario applies in their case, although at least Aviva's online pension systems do seem a little bit better so hopefully at some stage before retirement there is a chance I might finally see good detail of all my Friends Life pensions (all were AXA originally) online, alongside my Aviva one (where I did not of course accept their bribe either!).

However, I have no doubt whatsoever that the Aviva acquisition of Friends Life will cause yet more obfuscation and co-mingling of funds to muddy the water further. Being an old cynic, I would imagine that behind the scenes the same shadowy advisors advised both parts on their "reorganisations/reattribution" shenanigans, and now they slapping the remains together in order to ring out another stream of ill-deserved cash for their shareholders and the shadowy advisors.

Basically both companies treated With Profits customers abysmally in the noughties, and continue to obfuscate what is really happening with pensions invested in their with profits funds (very little growth in the basic funds and totally mysterious abstract "non-guaranteed final bonuses" being used to palm off requests for transfer values).

You will never get a proper explanation of how one of their final bonuses is calculated. They will tell you what they call bits of it, but they won't tell you where it was written down as a contract in a form you could calculate yourself.

Watch your back, every single step of the way. With the constant risk that these companies will just fold with the rats deserting in droves if there is another financial collapse, you do not need anyone giving you two line answers suggesting your money is safe. It ain't with any of them until they tell you which parts are guaranteed and which are just dreamed up to keep you quiet for another year.

dunstonh

I think the OP's questions deserve better answers than that, dunstonh.

It is a short and correct answer. Everything else is just irrelevant fluff as the OP is looking to crystallise the pension and the merger will have no impact on that.

agarnett

dunstonh wrote: »

It is a short and correct answer. Everything else is just irrelevant fluff as the OP is looking to crystallise the pension and the merger will have no impact on that.

The OP may well be looking to 'crystallise' the pension, which is a useless bloody term to quote to a layman, but he is no doubt using Friends Life's figures. How did they arrive at them ?

Trouble with all you IFAs is that you never question the pension providers and actuaries on how they arrived at the figures.

So if you don't know how they got the figures they quote, what use are you exactly other than as toll collectors for transfers and the like?

And you dismiss my comments as "fluff". What's that supposed to mean ? Maybe it is that unfortunate stuff of the type you don't want laying around upsetting your "business as usual" world?

Of course the acquisition will affect the OP. For a start, he has probably has little idea of the exact name of the fund he is in at Friends Life because they have shuffled them so often. Whichever he is in, it will be due for another shuffle soon as it is hardly likely to remain with the same name for long after Aviva take it over, now is it?

And were AXA and Aviva's treatments of the inherited estates in With Profits the same ? We can take a good guess that the OP's pension might be some kind of With profits investment, can't we?

Do we think they will be seeking to mix and merge the various bits of their untold modifications to their with profits funds nevertheless ?

What do we think that will do to the OP's investments?

You haven't a clue really, have you, dunstonh, what previous changes have done to them or what the new changes will mean to them? Maintaining the hype of the whole hall of mirrors depends totally on mealy-mouthed non guaranteed promises (if anyone should ever entertain such nonsense) of nefarious "terminal bonuses".

The OP said he was thinking of taking the tax free cash not that he was taking it. He also asked if the acquisition of Friends Life would make a difference. The correct short answer is that it might obviously make a difference if charlatans gain further opportunity to muddy the trails to funds, and you don't actually have a clue whether it does or doesn't without establishing exactly what it is the OP holds, and its history through the various forced changes that have already occured in the OPs pension's journey to and through the mill at Resolution / Friends Life.

You haven't asked whether the OP is a with profits policyholder, and whether the OP may have taken and AXA type bribe in 2001. Why not? Is it because you think it makes no difference ? I am here to tell you that it makes a hell of a difference, but it is one that you are unlikely to have spotted if you advised all your clients back then and in 2008 to sit back and gladly take AXA or Aviva bribes, and if you have conveniently ignored the signs of quite significant distributions to those that didn't, of special bonuses emanating from inherited estate since then.

The prospectus type information relating to the latest prospective acquisition is mind boggling.

It is on the one hand suggested that Aviva don't see the integration of Friends Life business as complex and that they plan 90 days as the time it will take. So I wonder when that 90 days is likely to start and will things grind to a near halt for three months while they get on with it? I expect dunstonh can give us a one word answer on that from his crystallised balls.

On the other hand we learn that after this acquisition, Aviva will be running the UK's largest "Back book" 'defined as per Friends Life's methodology and includes with-profit products, unit-linked bonds and other legacy products.' We don't know what Friends Life methodology is but dunstonh can probably tell us in a word. He might also tell us why this term "Back Book" is so in vogue, and getting banded about so much by those interested in this acquisition. So what is it about "Back books" that this lot of 'strategic partners' in the good old City of London find attractive to shareholders? The myriad of names and associates involved behind the scenes make the whole thing look like the plaything of a den of sophisticated thieves.

Might it be the opportunities for:

1. Asset migration?
2. Optimising return on shareholder assets?

which are mentioned in the blurb for shareholders? What might the assets in 1 and 2 be? Our funds? For the umpteenth time? Again? The inherited estate they blagged from gullible policyholders?

And what good did it actually do policyholders by Friends Life or Resolution acquiring and merging *7 separate businesses into two, Friends Life released £291M of "Free Surplus" between 2011 and 2013, let alone what is was they as Resolution were up to before that?

Surplus from where? Surplus to what? Policyholders' requirements or expectations?

I ask, because both Aviva and Friends Life are suggesting that Friends Life's track record in doing these things and their back book office team are wonderful things to have onboard at Aviva, and especially because the acquisition 'Adds significant scale to Aviva’s existing UK Life back book, as well as a management team with the expertise to unlock further value from UK Life insurance back books' is good for Aviva and Friends Life shareholders going forward!

Just so the point isn't lost too quickly, do note again that Friends Life is just the latest front name for what was Resolution. What's in a name? Well once upon a time it was a reputation. Still is, isn't it? Maybe that's why Resolution dropped their wolf-like one and put on a fluffy dead sheepskin that seemed once upon a time to be Friends to customers.

Most of the 100 firms that offered endowments no longer sell them, and many were swallowed up by vulture funds such as Phoenix or Resolution. Where do we think the inherited estate from those endowments is now? Shuffled and shaken and renamed and merged and put through the Friends methododgy methinks.

Look at this Telegraph headline from ten years ago regarding what Resolution did to terminal bonuses on with profits policies originally sold by Royal Insurance and Sun Alliance. Their "back books" were sold to the vultures at Resolution like most of the "back books". These back books contain our money which these plotters and strategic thinkers have had their greedy untrustworthy eyes on for well over a decade now, devising more and more weasley ways of separating more and more of it from us.

Once this acquisition is bedded in, they will be congratulating themsleves that they finally control chunks of the financial destinies of up to 16 million of us in the UK. How could the Competition and Markets Authority and it's predecessor organisations have ever been so blind as to allow the plotters time to even think about it let alone make such inroads year after year after year whilst we consumers have to suck up p|ss-poor performance in the name of 'poor market environments'? It is people like these plotters and their strategic partners in investment banks who manipulate the market environments into the state they are in.

And yet dunstonh says the short answer is no, none of this makes any difference. Talk about blind. He's been around long enough. Has he forgotten the history behind these outfits?

Some like short answers, I know. They are easily distinguished from longer ones. Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice.

*7 businesses include ASLAS ASL WLUK BHA FPLP FPP FPLAL which of course were just the more recent trading entities within the Resolution Ltd playpen. Never mind the previous entities Resolution swallowed up and spat out.

dunstonh

The OP may well be looking to 'crystallise' the pension, which is a useless bloody term to quote to a layman, but he is no doubt using Friends Life's figures. How did they arrive at them ?

Talking about inherited estate is a useless bloody term to quote to a layman. Especially as there is nothing posted to suggest the op is in with profits.

Trouble with all you IFAs is that you never question the pension providers and actuaries on how they arrived at the figures.

I see. This is not about helping the OP at all. Its about you going off on another rant.

And you dismiss my comments as "fluff". What's that supposed to mean ?

It means you posted a load of stuff that doesnt answer the OP's question and doesnt have any impact on him.

Of course the acquisition will affect the OP. For a start, he has probably has little idea of the exact name of the fund he is in at Friends Life because they have shuffled them so often.

Correct. We dont know the fund name. Yet that didnt stop you making assumptions that it was with profits and spending a long time going into things that happened in the past. So, what if the fund name changes in 2 or 3 years time. That doesnt affect someone taking benefits now.

And were AXA and Aviva's treatments of the inherited estates in With Profits the same ?

What has any of that got to do with what the OP asked?

You haven't a clue really, have you, dunstonh, what previous changes have done to them or what the new changes will mean to them?

None of which or anything else that following in your rant has anything to do with the questions asked by the OP.

agarnett

dunstonh wrote: »

Talking about inherited estate is a useless bloody term to quote to a layman. Especially as there is nothing posted to suggest the op is in with profits.

Bearing in mind that Friends Life as a company is about nothing else other than separating policyholders and their money, and that their forte is asset stripping with profits, don't you think my guess is rather more likely than your obtuse deflection?

It means you posted a load of stuff that doesnt answer the OP's question and doesnt have any impact on him.

Ah right, and you'll be guaranteeing that rash generalisation when the OP still has the policy in a couple of years time?

Correct. We dont know the fund name. Yet that didnt stop you making assumptions that it was with profits and spending a long time going into things that happened in the past.

Correct.

So, what if the fund name changes in 2 or 3 years time. That doesnt affect someone taking benefits now.

Really? The OP did not say they were thinking of taking all the benefits. The idea was to leave most of the funds with the company hoping that was the prudent thing to do. Is it ? Bear in mind that Friends Life is not afraid to tell anyone interested enough to read their prospectus to shareholders that their game is about siphoning out cash from "back books". They are the ants. We are the aphids. That's their game. And they are getting bolder because no-one, least of all you merry bands of Independent Financial whatevers, ever question what they are doing.

How many letters have you had from Friends Life telling you they have lost your address even though you haven't moved? Yes I kid you not, they do that.

What has any of that got to do with what the OP asked?

It's a big warning to keep their eye on the ball now, even if they haven't quite brought themselves to it in the past.

None of which or anything else that following in your rant has anything to do with the questions asked by the OP.

I beg to differ. Clearly the OP is behind the times when innocently enquiring if there might be a windfall in not so many words. That was the way things were done 15 years ago, and it was also how Friends Life in the guise of AXA in 2001 and Aviva in 2008 tempted their policyholders to take bribes. They let them think they were windfall entitlements.

Doubt everything that a bank or an insurance company or City firm does. Everything. Nothing is for the customer, and because these outfits now make no wealth for anyone except shareholders and "strategic partners" via secret deals, and their only visible business is managing our wealth, then their motives in everything are of course the worst.

It is about time advisors started with that massive health warning before they comment on any of it.

bmm78

Mita wrote: »

I'm 57 in April and am looking to raise a bit of extra cash so am thinking of taking the 25% lump sum from my Friends Life pension (which would give me approx £9500). I would leave the rest in the this pension plan and am not planning to touch it until nearer my retirement age of 66.

However, I've just noticed that there's a prospective Aviva/Friends Life merger on the horizon so would it be in my interest to leave all the money in the plan for the moment? Am I likely to benefit from this merger in terms of shares/pension increase etc? Please advise.

Many thanks

By the way, I do have two other pension plans which I aim to leave until retirement age.

The Aviva/Friends Life merger is unlikely to have any real impact on your retirement plans.

berbatov10

agarnett I have a FL policy which I was asking questions about on here. You have been quite scathing about them, for good reason it seems

agarnett

berbatov10 wrote: »

agarnett I have a FL policy which I was asking questions about on here. You have been quite scathing about them, for good reason it seems

Well it is interesting you take that view. Your own FL policy would seem to be something a bit different, but I have learned that the 2001 AXA reorganisation (the one where they merged AXA Equity & Law with AXA Sun Life businesses and let everyone in the With Profits fund think they were getting a windfall if they just voted 'Yes Please!') has resulted in some very strange goings on with regard to something to which you will find absolutely no reference to on the Internet.

It is this:

A Hercules Bonus

It comes around every five years or so since 2001, but is far less predictable in its period than any planet or comet.

Why on earth is it called Hercules ? Is that a clever codeword dreamed up by FL insiders ? Any FA on these boards have a clue ?

I am also told that it can be enquired about by emailing Capita! What on earth have Capita got to do with my FL policies?

Whenever I have seen Capita's name involved in anything at all over the past 30 years, I have never managed to smile about it.

They are government favoured bedfellows of old. They are secretive outsourcers of goodness knows what on behalf of goodness knows who for goodness knows why. We of course rarely get told the why, even if we find out what and who :mad:

I suppose this might begin explain a hitherto unexplained Capita search on my credit file a couple of years ago.

But Hercules ? That's another new one that my personal pensions detective work seems to have shaken inadvertently from the trees, and unlike the latest comet of all our acquaintance, I am unable to find out even remotely how big it might be, even though up until AXA bvggered about with it and snaffled a great chunk of the funds for themselves, it would have been declared annually on time as part of the overall bonus declaration.

So what are they hiding? Something to be found alongside Rosetta's Philae perhaps - disappeared down a black hole somewhere!

berbatov10

So to put more money into an existing but not topped up FL policy may be just a complete waste of my money? May I also ask what would you do with such a Policy?