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Insurance entrepreneur Sir Clive Cowdery has dismissed criticism of the Labour government’s growth policies as “complete hogwash”, after agreeing to sell privately owned Resolution Life to Japan’s Nippon Life in a deal that valued the business at $10.6bn.
Cowdery, who plans to bow out as chief executive of the UK insurance group he founded more than 20 years ago, said the previous Conservative government was marked by many years of mismanagement and had “shot the country in the foot” with Brexit.
While he said Labour “has to take a certain amount of heat as it begins to repair the damage” done to the public finances by the Conservatives, he insisted that “any concept or idea that the current government is not friendly to business and not friendly to growth is complete hogwash”.
His comments to the Financial Times mark one of the most strident defences of the government’s policies from the business world since a ramp-up in taxes on companies in October’s Budget drew a chorus of criticism from corporate Britain, which was heavily courted by Labour before July’s election.
Cowdery will continue as chief of Resolution Life until 2026, when he will be succeeded by the company’s current president Moses Ojeisekhoba, but will retain his role as chair.
“The founder syndrome is well documented and I am well aware of its dangers,” said Cowdery. “I don’t think you will find this company gripped by my cold dead hands.”
US private equity group Blackstone, which is also a shareholder in Resolution Life, will stay on as investment manager for some of the company’s assets, Nippon Life and Resolution Life said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Combining Resolution Life’s strengths, the investment management expertise of our partners at Blackstone and a well-funded parent gives us the opportunity to accelerate our growth,” said Cowdery.
Cowdery, whose personal wealth was estimated by The Sunday Times Rich List at £137mn in 2019, declined to say how much he stood to make from the sale of Bermuda-based Resolution Life, which specialises in buying up books of life insurance business from other insurers.
The company does not publicly disclose the size of the shareholdings of its investors — which include pension and sovereign wealth funds, and other UK insurers — or the pay of its senior executives.
Before founding Resolution Life in 2003, Cowdery was chair and chief of GE Insurance Holdings, which had operations in 12 countries. Earlier in his career, he co-founded J Rothschild International/Scottish Amicable International, a cross-border insurance business.
Since the formation of his Resolution vehicles, Cowdery has devoted a large proportion of his proceeds from the business to the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank that looks at ways to fight poverty, He was awarded a knighthood in 2016 for the foundation’s work.
Nippon Life, which already owns a 23 per cent stake in Resolution Life, will pay $8.2bn in cash for the remaining shares in a transaction that is expected to be completed in the second half of next year.
The deal with Nippon Life, which boasts 15mn customers and ¥87tn ($570bn) in assets, marks the biggest overseas takeover by a Japan-based insurer.
The country’s financial sector is under pressure to find revenue streams outside its home country, where returns are expected to fade because of a shrinking and ageing population.
Japan’s biggest insurance groups went on a buying spree a decade ago — Dai-ichi Life bought Protective Life in 2015, while Meiji and Sumitomo made large-scale deals the following year — before retreating from overseas deals.
The Resolution Life acquisition would be Nippon Life’s second major grab for overseas growth this year. The company agreed in May to pay $3.8bn for a 21.6 per cent stake in US life insurer Corebridge.