Last month, I bought my first ever item on eBay. Only vaguely familiar with the concept of bidding, ...
Last month, I bought my first ever item on eBay. Only vaguely familiar with the concept of bidding, I logged onto the site and placed a bid for an item that had just been put up for offer. Needless to say, I was very excited when my offer was accepted as the highest one and thought I had secured myself as the winner.
However, 10 minutes before the end of the bidding, it all went pear-shaped as I suddenly found myself outbid not by one but by three other more-savvy eBayers. In desperation, I started to randomly put in various bids and, while ending up winning the item, it cost me pretty much the same as it would have done if I had bought it new in the shop.
While I would not at all suggest that the bidders for Resolution are in any way as reckless as I was, bidding on eBay is not too far removed from the takeover frenzy currently dominating the protection market.
When Friends Provident and Resolution first announced their merger plans in July earlier this year, not a single company put in another offer and the formation of a new company, to be called Friends Financial, looked more or less set, with a shareholder meeting scheduled for 5 November.
With less than a month to go, however, things started to hot up. First, Resolution's largest shareholder, Pearl Assurance, made two bids for the insurer on 10 and then 19 October. Both bids were rejected and the firm is now no longer allowed to make a bid for the next six months. Shortly after, Zurich was mentioned as an interested bidder. While this was never confirmed, only days later Standard Life announced that it was keen on grabbing a share of Resolution. The insurer was given a deadline of 25 October if it wished to submit a bid. Making it more interesting, however, was the revelation that Swiss Re was in talks with Standard Life about purchasing parts of Resolution should the deal go ahead.
As COVER went to press, the deal was still up in the air and anything could have happened since then. But whatever the conclusion, the important question is not which company will win the bid but, as one commentator put it, "will the acquirer or the acquired be the dominant player in this?"
