It has taken almost exactly two years, but yesterday Philip Moore finally returned to City life. The 49-year-old former chief executive of Friends Provident, ousted from the insurer after the collapse of an £8.8 billion merger with Resolution, has become an independent director at RAB Capital, the hedge fund.
It is Mr Moore’s first position at a listed company since he left Friends in December 2007 and will sit alongside his role as finance partner at Pension Corporation, Edmund Truell’s pensions buyout group.
Mr Moore, a married father of two who has recently taken up golf, was sufficiently confident yesterday to say that he was looking forward to taking on more independent directorships.
He has been described by RAB as having “top-drawer” experience. He said that he was attracted by the prospects for a turnaround at the hedge fund, which has suffered two years of grizzly performance and a tumbling share price.
Mr Moore’s experience at Friends, which he joined as finance director in 2003 after stints at the insurers Amp UK and NPI, was less comfortable. Having won the top job in 2007, a disagreement over new business targets with Jim Smart, his replacement as finance director, sparked boardroom tensions and disquiet among investors. After Resolution, which initially appeared as Friends’s saviour, was bought by Pearl Assurance, its rival, Mr Moore had to go.
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Clearly, he is not afraid of a challenge. A retired Territorial Army major, five years ago he gained a private pilot’s licence and has since clocked up more than 100 hours in the air.
Mr Moore, who studied mathematics at Cambridge, has spent almost his entire career in life insurance. His first job was as an actuarial trainee in the life department at Commercial Union, now part of Aviva, before consultancy jobs at Mercer and Coopers & Lybrand.