The insurer says ‘concerns are still not addressed’ six weeks before the Scotland votes on whether or not to stay in the UK.
Standard Life has warned that its concerns about the potential impact of Scottish independence on its business have still not been addressed – more than five months after the company first spoke out about the issue.
The Edinburgh-based company said it did “not believe that further clarity has been provided” on issues it raised in February that could affect its four million UK customers, staff and shareholders.
These material issues include what currency Scotland will use if becoming independent, whether it will join the EU, financial regulation, taxation, the shape of the monetary system and the impact of such changes on savings and pensions.
The FTSE 100 company, which has been based in Scotland since 1825, said in February that it was preparing to shift operations and personnel out of Scotland “as a precautionary measure” to ensure the business remained competitive. It has since been registering corporate entities in England and holding talks with prudential regulators as part of contingency plans.
Presenting the company’s half-year results on Tuesday, chief executive David Nish said that Standard Life is continuing to “look at different ways of how we could react” if Scotland becomes independent, but he added that he was “unaware of any significant amount of money being withdrawn” so far by customers based outside Scotland.
Mr Nish revealed that Standard Life had a net £4.6 billion worth of funds in the first half of 2014, boosting its total assets under management to £254 billion. Operating profit before tax rose 12% to £339 million – up from £304 million from last year. This increase was helped by automatic enrolment of UK workers onto company pension schemes – and the company expects to add over 300,000 new auto-enrolled customers in 2014.
Using the European embedded value (EEV) measure, operating profit after tax fell to £341 million, down from £353 million in the first half of last year – showing the impact of fewer sales of annuities and institutional pensions in the UK.
But Mr Nish said Standard Life was “well placed to deal with the far-reaching reforms to the savings and retirement income rules, announced earlier this year by the UK Government”.
Source: Investec
