Harrogate – Engage Mutual announced today that the Board has made a formal recommendation that the Society merges with Family Investments to form one of the UK’s largest mutual insurers with over 2 million customers. The organisation would focus on helping families work together across generations, to save, invest and protect.
As a customer owned organisation, Engage will write to members and ask them to consider and vote on the proposed merger in the coming weeks.
Together, Engage and Family would have approximately £6 billion assets under management, with members of both boards and executive teams represented in the new organisation. It is envisaged that current Engage Chair, Christina McComb would become Chair of the joint organisation and Family Chief Executive, Simon Markey, would become Chief Executive.
In different ways, Engage and Family are both focused on meeting the financial needs of families. Members of the merged business would benefit from being part of, and having a say in, a larger, even more financially secure organisation. The enlarged business would be committed to increasing the scale and scope of the valuable benefits it provides to its customers. From a commercial perspective, greater economies of scale would provide operational efficiencies, enhanced new business opportunities and a larger and improved capital base.
Engage Chairman, Christina McComb, said: It is clear to the Board that to join forces with Family would be in the long term best interests of our members.
A merger with Family would accelerate our strategic intent to create a customer-owned business that delivers unmatched value, service and customer benefits.
We believe that combining our businesses would demonstrate the value of the mutual model through consolidation of our considerable individual financial strengths while maximising joint skills and capabilities to deliver a broader range of products and services to help families of all ages at key life stages.
Engage has ensured that should the transaction proceed, the future of the Engage Foundation, its unique £1m customer benefit fund, would continue. The merged business intends to commit £5m over 5 years, which would expand the Foundation significantly.
Engage Chief Executive, Peter Burrows, said: What matters to us is what matters to our customers. We believe being stronger together as a single business is the best way for us to deliver greater value, long term strength, and make a positive difference to the lives of our customers and their families. We will now seek the approval of our membership to merge with Family on this basis.
