Friends Life to close offices - jobs at risk
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Friends Life is to close its Basingstoke office and consolidate its offices in Manchester by the end of 2012.
In total 140 people work in Friends Life’s Spring Gardens Manchester office and a further 155 people are employed at the Basingstoke office.
Staff have been notified of the decision today.
A Friends Life spokesman says that as of today no jobs have been placed at risk, as staff may be deployed to other departments.
A decision on the number of job losses will be taken in late August.
The announcement follows the migration of corporate pensions business acquired from Axa UK in September to the heritage Friends Provident corporate pensions platform New Generation Pensions.
Much of the work carried out in the Basingstoke office was linked to corporate pensions admin. The migration process is due to complete in 2012, at which point the Basingstoke office will close.
Following the acquisition of Bupa Health Assurance, the enlarged Friends Life business also has two sites in Manchester - the heritage Friends Provident office in Spring Gardens and the acquired office in Salford Quays. The decision has been taken to consolidate into the Salford Quays office by the end of Q2 2012.
Friends Life executive director operations David Hynam says: “The proposals announced today are part of a review of our office locations across the enlarged business to rationalise sites and reduce fragmentation of our operations. Our strategy to reduce our cost base can be achieved by consolidating into fewer office locations and today’s announcement helps us to achieve this objective.
“These decisions, whilst necessary, are extremely difficult ones to make and we are very mindful of the impact on our people. We will do all we can to help them through this period.”
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Readers' comments (10)
Incompetent Regulators Awards Team | 5 Jul 2011 3:44 pm
Friends used to be, yes used to be is the word, a good provider until it appeased the regulations too much. This was shown in their rubbish returns in their W Profits funds. They became far too risk averse in their fund management attitude and hence my policy matured after 10 years to £4,400 when I had contributed £4,200 in total. What a great return!
Not surpised if they totally shut down.
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Duncan Jones | 5 Jul 2011 4:20 pm
They need to be given the benefit of the doubt at this stage and I hope that service will improve. It needs to if they (along with so many other providers) are to survive adviser support post RDR.The more I think about it the more convinced I am that RDR will wreak havoc amongst product providers who have got away with poor service based on commission 'bribes'
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Anonymous | 5 Jul 2011 5:15 pm
Come on everybody wake up to the breakfast ceriel! Everybody new that people would loose their jobs which is what happens with any buy out / merger! Just look at the banking industry. Everyone says it is part of streamlining the business, being more competitive BUT they never ever offer as good a service or more innovative products at lower prices to the end user!
What a shambles!!
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Harry Katz | 5 Jul 2011 5:15 pm
Ah the benefits of being owned by a Vulture Fund. No wonder Trev had the good sense to jump ship. Is this the thin end of the wedge?
Anyway just symptomatic of the parlous state of life offices. At least Friends recognise that they need to stick to their knitting and offer life assurance instead of trying to compete with the fund managers.
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Anonymous | 5 Jul 2011 6:46 pm
Friends Provident have been wasting a ton of admin time and expertise in paying me £14.41 a month since 1991 after the sad and untimely death of my husband who died of cancer aged only 42.I weathered the tough job of getting two children through school and college and for one University too but cannot think how a company can make a profit if it pays out such a piddling sum ad nauseum- we used to joke that £14 a month fed the family cat but even the cat has gone out on the ethernet catching her own flying morsels of free food at the grand old age of 15!
I contacted Friends Provident and suggested they might like to pay out on a triviality clause. They declined. My mother is 90 and my Grand father lived to nearly a 100 so they may be paying £14 a month for a very, very long time !
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Dennis Burling ACII APFS, Chartered Financial Plan | 5 Jul 2011 7:05 pm
I have just spent the last 3 weeks trying to get a Chargeable gain calculation out of them for a proposed partial withdrawal from an existing old longstanding AXA Equity & Law bond. Initial feedback was 5-10 work days just to do some simple calculations -what a joke.
I was told today that the letter went out in the post yesterday - will now have to wait and see - what a shambles indeed.
I remember when Friends Provident used to be an excellent company to deal with and very efficient - how the mighty have fallen. They now join my list of companies that I do not now use unless I have to.
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Another RDR Victim! | 6 Jul 2011 9:37 am
Blame it on the FSA and their RDR. 24/03/11 Friends Provident: Announced that the retail distribution review (RDR) has meant it is no longer viable to market or develop new investment products. In its interim results Friends Provident said the RDR meant that it would not actively market investment products and the insurer has concluded that the costs required to develop an RDR-compliant investment product and the expected margins on the products would not generate adequate returns for shareholders.
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Anonymous | 6 Jul 2011 1:41 pm
I would say that Friends Provident are utterly useless and I feel I've been 'had'. When you look at financial products they all portray themselves as experts - as people you can trust to do something with your money because ... they are experts - they know more than you.
The £90 a month I paid into my endowment policy was a complete waste of money. Returns would have been greater if I had saved £90 each month into a building society account.
Some experts! Personally, I hope the whole industry goes down the pan. There is no real expertise in investment. Just riding growth in the economy and, in many cases, the selective provision of information ... 'Top quartile in 4 of the last 5 years!' ... the fact that your £1000 is worth less than when you invested it 5 years ago seems to be neither here nor there. Why should it be? They have had their management charges - they never miss out on those.
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Darren | 7 Jul 2011 1:06 pm
I reckon they are all at the T20 cricket!! If the staff aren't there then I'm guessing the money is.
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Anonymous | 7 Jul 2011 1:37 pm
to dennis burling- re chargeable gains on the bond
without wanting to be rude dennis, as a chartered financial planner, would it not have been quicker and easier to ask the service centre at FP to provide details of investment amount/withdrawals/partial surrenders etc and then do the calculation yourself rather than wait for them to do it?
as they don't look for new investment business anymore, there isn't really that much of a motivation for Friends Life to do improve service standards as they aren't trying to sell anything.
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