The bitter battle over the future of LV= will be decided today when the mutual insurer reveals whether its 1.2 million members have backed a £530 million takeover by an American private equity firm.
The 178-year-old life assurance and pensions group has faced a backlash since it announced a year ago that it had agreed to sell itself to Bain Capital.
The demutualisation of the customer-owned business previously known as the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society has been attacked by some members, as well as by MPs and peers, who have criticised the size of the pay-offs that policyholders will receive and the transparency of the sale process.
LV=, based in Bounemouth, will hold a virtual meeting online today to give its members a final opportunity to vote on the deal. However, given that members were also able to vote by proxy ahead of the meeting, it is thought that many have already cast their ballot and the fate of the deal has been decided.
LV= traditionally has low turnouts at its meetings — only about 40,000 people voted at its last AGM in September — but member engagement in the Bain ballot is expected to be higher than normal. The insurer requires the approval of 75 per cent of members who vote for the takeover to go ahead.
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The sale to the Boston-based Bain would mark a significant turning point in the history of a group that can trace its roots to 1843, when it was set up in Liverpool to help poor families to avoid pauper’s funerals. It has 1.16 million members, of whom a minority are with-profits policyholders that legally own the group. Mark Hartigan, LV=’s chief executive, and Alan Cook, its chairman, have urged them to back the deal.
All members are in line for a £100 cash payment each if the sale completes, while 271,000 with-profits members also will receive modest uplifts to their policies averaging £340.
Last month these sums were dismissed as “paltry” by Gareth Thomas, the Labour MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for mutuals.
