Who was involved in the process other than you and Chaos?
One thing I learned from 1999 was to keep the team small. If you have 12 people, you have 12 different options, which is not always helpful. We were a very tight group, with myself, Mike Foy, who will be chief executive of the new company, Paul Thompson, one of our new owners, and Simon Woolnough, who is the sales manager.
Between us we represented different parts of the company. The other three members of the team had no previous experience of this sort of thing and, being more ‘numbers people’, I was apprehensive about how comfortable they would be. But I was really pleased that they all threw themselves into the process wholeheartedly.
The acquisition of Axa Isle of Man was a change for LCCG, which previously only bought closed books. How has the process been with the new owners involved?
When companies are taken over it tends to be by a direct competitor, with one company absorbed into the other. For us it has been very different in that we have been taken over by a company that previously focused on consolidating closed books of business.
Our purchase has been quite a departure from that strategy in that they are now planning to acquire open, as well as closed books of business.
Having our new owners in the room brought an interesting dynamic. As I mentioned, Paul has been very much involved, as has Ian Maidens. Everyone really bought in to the process from day one.
Would open books of business that are acquired in future be folded into Utmost Wealth Solutions?
LCCG has ambitions to acquire more open and closed books and, as we understand it, Utmost will become the vehicle for the open books, which is quite exciting.
We have already announced that LCCG is buying the Dublin-based unit-linked business of Axa Life Europe, which we already broadly administer.
It will not buy the whole of Axa Life Europe but will carve out the unit-linked products. Axa Isle of Man was a wholly owned subsidiary of Axa UK, while Axa Life Europe is wholly owned by Paris. This has made things a bit more complicated but the announcement removes the question of what happens to the Dublin business.
That will give us a presence in the Isle of Man and Dublin. LCCG has its main office in Dublin managing closed books, but the demands and requirements of having an open book of business are quite different, so having our own presence makes sense.
