Friends Life to launch in-house asset manager in H2 2012

Friends Life has today announced the creation of Friends Life Investments (FLI), a new inhouse asset management business which will launch in the second half of 2012.

The asset manager will be seeded with approximately £8bn of recaptured assets and will initially focus on fixed income, the group said. It will initially be run by chief investment officer, Mark Versey, and will be a 100% owned subsidiary of the Friends Life Group. The intention is for the initial focus of FLI to be on fixed income assets in respect of annuity liabilities, shareholder assets and assets backing other non profit liabilities. Further investment classes will be considered as the business grows, the company said. The business will use an outsourced model with invest...