A UK newspaper has pinpointed Friends Provident as one of a number of mostly unnamed insurers who were rumored to be interested in buying Standard Life before its recent IPO.
The Scotsman newspaper reports that, in April 2006, Standard Life revealed it has seen a ‘number of approaches’, but at the time only Resolution Life admitted its interest.
Now the newspaper claims that Friends Provident was another player sniffing around a possible deal, but ultimately Standard Life went ahead with its float. However the need to devalue the listing in the face of a choppy equity market has meant that the M&A rumors continue to swirl around the Edinburgh-based group.