Restructuring mutuals—principles and practice

Abstract

1.1 This paper owes its existence on two counts to the late Jim Souness whose term of office as President of the Faculty coincided with the bulk of our research. Firstly, as President, he encouraged Faculty research groups to be active and to produce material worthy of sessional papers. More directly it was the late President who funnelled our general investigations of life office management (which had continued after the Group's 1987 sessional paper) towards the issue of demutualisation.There have been several notable demutualisations of life offices in recent years, yet there is little published research in the UK other than case studies into the actuarial issues which these restructurings raise for the profession. Furthermore much of what has been published pertains to overseas regimes not subject to UK-style regulation. However at the time of writing we are aware that another paper (reference 20) was being written concurrently, and it relates specifically to the UK.