Business in brief
Aviva sells Spain operations for £178m
Insurer Aviva has taken further steps to simplify the business by sealing a £178m sale of its Spanish operations. The insurance giant has sold its share of life and pensions joint ventures Cajamurcia Vida and Caja Granada Vida to Spain’s state-backed lender Bankia.
The move does not mark a full-blown exit from the country, with Aviva continuing to hold a stake in life insurance firm Pelayo Vida. Group chief executive Mark Wilson said the deal secured a “strong return” for shareholders. He said: “It means that, over the past five years, we have generated proceeds of £1.3bn from selling almost all of our Spanish operations”. Mr Wilson has been pushing through a radical shake-up of the group, exiting fringe businesses to focus on its core operations. PA
Standard Life Aberdeen rewards chiefs with pay rise
Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) revealed yesterday its co-chief executive Keith Skeoch’s total pay rose by 9 per cent to £3m in 2017. Skeoch was formerly the chief executive of insurer and asset manager Standard Life, which completed an £11bn merger with Scottish rival Aberdeen Asset Management in August last year.
Co-chief executive Martin Gilbert, Aberdeen’s former boss and Skeoch’s fishing partner, was paid £1.3m for his time on the board of SLA, it said in its annual report. The SLA did not provide details of Gilbert’s pay before the merger and was not immediately able to say what he earned during the period while he was still chief executive of Aberdeen.
SLA also said it had changed its remuneration policy to cut future maximum pay packages for its top executives to bring it into line with peers, as it shifts to an asset management focus. Reuters
William Hill mulls quitting Australia
Bookmaker William Hill could pull out of Australia after booking exceptional charges on operations there and suffering its first pretax loss in three years. William Hill, which has around 284,000 customers in Australia, said a strategic review of the business would conclude by the middle of the year.
The Australian business made up 7 per cent of annual revenue and near 6 per cent of adjusted operating profit for William Hill in 2017. A retreat from Australia would raise further questions about the future of William Hill which has missed out on a round of consolidation in the UK market. William Hill, which expanded in Australia in 2013 through acquisitions, took an exceptional charge of over £238m on its Australian operations for 2017. Reuters
Norway buys £245m stake in Shaftesbury
The sovereign wealth fund of Norway bought a £245m stake in British property group Shaftesbury from Invesco, regulatory filings showed on Thursday. Shaftesbury owns and manages retail, office and residential properties in the prime London districts of Soho and Covent Garden.
Norges Bank Investment Management, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund and one of the largest holders of London property, increased its stake in Shaftesbury to 20.86 per cent from 12.66 per cent earlier. Norges, Shaftesbury’s second biggest shareholder, also owns a 25 per cent share in London’s Regent Street, with the rest held by the Crown Estate, a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the Queen. Reuters