SCOTTISH Friendly has revealed that funds under management have more than doubled, from £1.1 billion in 2014 to more than £2.6bn in 2015, a rise of 147 per cent.
More than £1bn of the increase is because of the acquisition of Marine & General Mutual (M&MG) in June 2015, which was seen as a major coup for Scottish Friendly, which describes itself as Scotland's largest mutual. Fiona McBain, chief executive of Scottish Friendly also revealed there was a positive return on the asset shares within the Scottish Friendly fund over the year.
At its annual general meeting today the Glasgow-based company will confirm that the increase came on top of an 18 per cent rise in total sales from £21.6 million in 2014 to a record £25.5m in 2015.
The addition of almost 30,000 new members from M&GM, in addition to new business, drove Scottish Friendly’s membership up by over 70,000 to a total of 490,000.
Ms McBain added: “With efficiency being one of the company’s key selling points, we more than doubled in size with only a very modest increase in headcount, from 88 in 2014 to 96.”
She added that she was delighted to report such a strong year. “The June 2015 transfer of M&GM to Scottish Friendly was a major factor in driving these numbers up and will bring significant economies of scale,” she said.
She added that 2015 was also notable for record sales, in part due to Scottish Friendly’s substantial set of corporate partnerships with the likes of Beagle Street and Smart Insurance.
“Scottish Friendly over the past decade has not been an organisation that’s ever rested on its laurels and we don’t intend to now,” she said. “Although the economy is facing some challenging times, we are confident that Scottish Friendly’s successes in 2015 position us favourably to respond to these challenges. The foundations are in place for long-term success and we will continue to seek out opportunities for further growth.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here