Cowdery gets his man as Tiner joins Resolution team
Cowdery assembles crack buyout team
Clive Cowdery set up the first incarnation of Resolution in 2003 with £500,000 of his own money, after leaving General Electric’s insurance unit.
The company began life as a closed life fund consolidator, before Cowdery transformed it into a FTSE 100 insurance behemoth through a series of tie-ups. A merger with Britannic in 2005, coupled with a £3.6m deal for Abbey National’s closed life funds in 2006, saw the group double in size.
The firm’s assets were eventually sold in May this year to Pearl, Hugh Osmond’s investment firm for £4.9m, after a three-month delay over regulatory obstacles. It then delisted.
The deal handed Cowdery a cash windfall of some £145m and freed him up to launch his financial services buyout firm, looking to acquire assets from large financial services groups in need of restructuring. The moniker Resolution had brought him so much success, he used it again.
Cowdery’s new signing John Tiner, 51, has had a long career in financial services, having served as chairman of the Financial Services Authority until July last year.
He had previously said that he wanted one more role in the private sector before retiring and the chief executive position at Resolution fits the bill perfectly. Tiner brings a wealth of experience to the role, having been an accountant at Arthur Andersen where he lead the investigation into the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank.
He is admired for his sense of timing, leaving Andersen just months before it was brought down by the Enron scandal and stepping down from the FSA before the Northern Rock crisis.
He is joined on the board of Resolution by Phil Hodkinson, who has been HBOS finance director since March 2005.
Previously, he led the development of the group’s insurance and investment businesses as chief executive of the division in 2001, overseeing significant growth in the unit.