Sandy Crombie, chief executive of Standard Life, has warned policyholders that voting against demutualisation would result in reduced payouts and a sale of assets to prop up its troubled capital position. At the company's AGM recently, he said that staying mutual would force Standard Life to close to some types of new business, and warned that a forced sell off of assets such as Standard Life Bank would be sold at book value, and the brand value would be lost.
Our view
In today's modern World, companies need to be better able to react to market changes, even down to being able to raise money such as is possible when you are a limited company rather than a member owned mutual.
For Standard to prosper, we believe that demutualisation is a must.