Resolution/Friends Provident: changing places

Clive Cowdery, the boss of UK insurer Resolution, has lost patience with Hugh Osmond. Osmond’s Pearl group, a rival in the closed life insurance market, became Resolution’s biggest shareholder two months ago by taking a 16,5% stake. It has been sniping Resolution’s plans to merge with rival Friends Provident ever since. Cowdery’s reworking of the deal won’t answer Osmond’s principal objections. But it will press the Pearl boss to come clean on whether he has any better ideas. Osmond may have be...