So your distribution remains traditional?
That has not changed and we are very clear, we distribute through independent intermediaries. That is the traditional route for our industry.
Part of our strategy is that we want more, and more diverse, relationships with advisers. We have added a lot of new relationships to our book and reawakened a lot of old ones, where people had not done business with us for five-plus years.
In the past year, around 85% of our new business came from those new and re-established relationships. Our aspiration is to be the preferred choice for distributors when they are looking for an international savings and investment product for their clients.
How about your new strategy?
Our strategy, which is about 18 months old, is to build the scale of the business in a diversified way, through organic growth and with acceptable levels of risk and profitability.
We have focused on six areas: our relationships with distributors; customer service excellence; motivating and engaging our workforce; growing our market presence; raising our industry profile; and making sure our online systems remain market leading.
The Middle East and Africa was the first region that we reorganised and put the new sales structure in place, and it was our single biggest growth area last year in terms of the present value of new business premiums. We expect similar improvement in the Far East, Latin America and our Rest of World regions this year.
Will you reopen Hansard Europe?
Never say never, but at this point our experience with Europe is that it is too complex and diverse for a company of our size to deal with.
You have got different laws, languages, and tax rules, to name but a few of the challenges. You end up with a hugely complicated, divergent product range that is too difficult to manage.
In the end, that is why we decided Europe was not really the best use of our resources when we could be doing a much better, more valuable job for the group in the international marketplace.
But even though we are running a closed book we still have to keep an eye on any European Union regulatory changes to see whether they affect our business.
What changes have affected Hansard?
One of the biggest challenges is the sheer amount of time and effort required to deal with all the regulatory changes. In the past couple of years, we have had the Common Reporting Standard, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and, even though our Irish business is closed to new business, we still had to implement Solvency II.
What does the future hold for Hansard?
More change. We are looking at new markets and new ways of doing things. We have a number of irons in the fire in terms of licences and joint ventures, but it is too early for us to say anything.
We have an overarching view of our priorities and know that we have to stay agile so that we are able to change priorities at short notice if needs be. LW
Biography
Gordon Marr has been group chief executive of Hansard Global since 2013, having joined the group in 1988. He was appointed managing director in 2009, having previously served as group counsel and an executive director. A solicitor and member of the Law Society, Marr started his career in private practice for a commercial law firm in London. He later joined healthcare specialist Bupa as a legal adviser and worked for one of the brokers on the Lloyd’s market before joining the life industry.
