Life insurer Phoenix has fallen back after calling off takeover talks.
The company, a closed life fund specialist formerly known as Pearl, pulled out of discussions with private equity group CVC because it could not agree on price. It said it was not in talks with any other parties, and so was no longer in an offer period. Phoenix had been in talks with CVC since November, after the failure of an approach from larger rival Resolution. Phoenix chief executive Clive Bannister said:
The terms proposed by CVC did not reflect our view of the full value of Phoenix and its stable, long-term cash flows. As a result we have mutually decided to terminate these discussions.
Phoenix shares are down 10.5p to 559p, a near 2% decline. Analyst Marcus Barnard at Oriel Securities said:
Phoenix announced on 20 November that the board had held discussions with Resolution, but that these had been terminated. There has been some speculation that Resolution might come back to the table. While we cannot rule this out in the medium to long term, for the time being this seems unlikely.
