Upbeat Crombie tightens grip on SL

SIR Sandy Crombie has ensured he will leave his mark on Standard Life, as he tightens his grip on the pensions giant in his last few months as chief executive.

He officially became chairman of the company's Canadian operations after the departure of current chairman Jocelyn Proteau at yesterday's annual general meeting (AGM).

The move will place Crombie in control of all of the company's major businesses for his final months in charge.

A year ago, he took over responsibility for the group's UK life and pensions' business when the then head of the division, Trevor Matthews, left to join Friends Provident.

At what he admitted might be his last AGM, Crombie told some 100 shareholders that, thanks to the group's "conservative financial strategy" it had "withstood the recent turmoil", could withstand further turmoil and was "well placed to take advantage of future upturns".

Keeping his trademark poker face, Crombie accepted SL chairman Gerry Grimstone's congratulations on his knighthood in the New Year's Honours list – and for his 42 years' service.

He went on: "I'm still leading this business and will continue to give it my full attention to bring about future success for the company, for our customers, our people – and for you, our shareholders."

But, indicating that he continued to be in control, Crombie added it was "too soon to be saying goodbye".

Proteau, who oversees the Montreal-headquartered Standard Life Assurance Company (SCDA), stepped down from the board after yesterday's meeting in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Grimstone stressed that the decision to take SCDA under head-office control was "definitely not linked" to the Canadian business's poor performance last year, which was caused by its high exposure to turbulent markets.

Last year, Standard Life flagged a 6 per cent rise in pre-tax operating profits – but Grimstone said normalised underlying profit before tax had more than halved, from £476 million in 2007, to £206m in 2008, under International Financial Reporting Standards regulations.

Stripping out the impact of the Canadian operations, the profit measure was down just 19 per cent to £349m.

Proteau will be replaced on the board by a new non-executive director "with experience of the Canadian markets", Grimstone told The Scotsman.

He said the decision to take control of the Canadian operation had been made in a bid to unite Standard Life's global business.

SCDA, which has £18 billion of assets under administration, employs about 2,000 staff.

Grimstone added: "We have a strong business in Canada. But having the group chief executive as chairman, it ties the business in with our strategy."

Standard Life's shares closed 3.6 per cent lower at 182.7p.

Pensions giant launches charity with unclaimed shares

STANDARD Life is to launch a £5 million charity trust funded by shares left unclaimed after the demutualisation of the company.

The life and pensions giant yesterday announced the creation of the Standard Life Charitable Trust, which is to help community projects around the world – in all markets where the life and pensions group operates.

Cash to fund the trust is to come from a small proportion of Standard Life's Unclaimed Assets Trust (UAT), boosted by residual amounts left in the Dividend Reinvestment Plan following a change to the dividend scheme, which was approved at yesterday's Annual General Meeting.

When the company was floated on the Stock Exchange, members were allocated a certain number of shares. But three years later, not all members have taken up their share allocation – and despite the firm's attempts to track them down, 41,394,213 shares and around £7.5 million in cash remains unclaimed. The value of the UAT stood at around £75m at yesterday's closing share price of 182.7p.

Chairman Gerry Grimstone yesterday told The Scotsman that Standard Life had approached the Inland Revenue to ask permission to put some of the cash to good use.

He said although specifics were to be decided, literacy and education projects were likely to benefit from the trust, as well as local community schemes.

He said:

"We told the Inland Revenue that we would like to use this for some kind of charitable purpose."