Phoenix Group - TDR Capital

At the time of our ownership, Phoenix Group (formerly Pearl Group) was a closed life assurance fund consolidator that specialised in the management and acquisition of closed life and pension funds, operating primarily in the UK.

The policies offered by these funds included unit-linked policies, with-profit policies and annuities. Phoenix Group managed approximately £70 billion of assets for over five million policyholders which, at the time, made it the largest UK consolidator of closed life assurance funds.

At a glance
Status: Realised
Exit Type: Public Shareholders
Deal Type: Private Sale
Sector: Financial Services
Exit Date: July 2014
Initial Investment Date: April 2005
Website: www.thephoenixgroup.com

Transaction

We believed that the acquisition of closed book life assurance and pension schemes provided an opportunity to acquire funds which gave stable and predictable cash flows and where such cash flows were less sensitive to external volatility than generally perceived.

Furthermore, we felt that many “closed” funds were being undervalued both by the application of an unduly high discount rate and as a result of negative market sentiment partially driven by industry wide mis-selling issues.

In April 2005, TDR and Sun Capital Partners, acting through Life Company Investor Group, purchased the closed life insurance businesses of HHG plc.

During TDR’s investment

Optimised operations, and refocused the business by separating its asset, liability and risk management functions to improve returns and management of risk

We improved operations and were able to realise significant savings through outsourcing the majority of the functions of the service company; i.e. customer call centres and payment processing. We also created separate asset, liability and risk management functions to improve returns and risk management of the underlying portfolio, including hiring an experienced head of risk management and a CIO
In 2007 an opportunity arose to acquire Resolution plc, Phoenix’s principal competitor and a FTSE 100 company. We believed that this acquisition represented an opportunity to create further value through consolidation in the industry and through the application of similar techniques to those applied following the original acquisition of Phoenix
Subsequent to the reverse takeover of Euronext-listed Liberty Acquisitions Holdings (International) Company in 2009, the company sought shareholder approval for a Premium Listing on the London Stock Exchange. Phoenix was included in the FTSE 250 index with effect from September 2010
We sold our shares in the business over the following years, and fully realised the investment in July 2014