Friends Provident 2008 Results

Friends Provident (FP), the parent company of Friends Provident International, saw net losses of £541m ($1 billion) in 2008; more than five times its 2007 loss of £108m. FP has already cut 10% of its workforce in an effort to reduce costs.

Obviously, those results are not the news investors and portfolio holders are happy to hear. Yet, the company financial position and reserve remain strong as they ended 2008 with £850m of cash reserves.

Its chief executive, Trevor Matthews remains positive:

We’re quite pleased with our overall results; this is quite a difficult market. We are cutting costs, we’re concentrating on developing our key business lines both here and overseas so we can take advantage when the markets do turn. We believe we’re in a strong position at the present time.

So to summarize, FP is not in the best of health, but its bottom line remains strong. For those who seek further reassurance, they will be happy to hear that FPI is following the Isle of Man’s Life Assurance (Compensation of Policyholders) Regulations 1991. Hence they are in the same position as Royal Skandia, who addressed this problem in their Open Letter back in October. If you want to know more, feel free to follow the link and read the protection the Isle of Man provides.