Is this the end of the Equitable Life saga?
The long suffering Equitable Life with profit annuitants were thrown a lifeline last week, as the Prudential agreed to take on their policies.
62,000 with profits annuitants will see their annuities, worth £1.8bn, transferred to Prudential if the scheme gets the go-ahead, bringing to an end seven years of misery, during which these annuitants have seen their incomes slashed by more than a third.
The deal follows hot on the heels of the sell-off of Equitable Life’s non-profit annuity book to Canada Life, clearing the decks for the sale of its remaining £6.5bn with profit fund to another insurer as a run-off fund.
So what does this augur for the remaining Equitable policyholders who, despite the insurer being nearly brought to its knees in 2000, have not transferred their funds elsewhere?
With the Equitable with profits bonus announcement, due on 29 March 2007, expected to reveal further poor investment returns, one could be forgiven for thinking that any other insurance company could do better.
Equitable, which hopes to complete the with profit annuity transfer by the end of the year, is now expected to go into talks with closed life fund players such as Resolution, Pearl and Swiss Re.
Charles Thomson, Equitable’s chief executive, says he hopes to resolve the future of the remaining funds by the end of 2008.
In the meantime, the remaining long suffering policyholders eagerly await the publication of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s report into the Equitable affair.
But judging by this administration’s recent dismissal of the Ombudsman’s report into the Government’s role in the demise of final salary pension schemes, I, as an Equitable policyholder myself, am not holding my breath.
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