Flotation pay-off opportunities now diminishing

The opportunities for account and policy holders hoping to make money from a flotation are shrinking.

In Ireland, the fate of the building societies is decided. Irish Permanent's flotation has already proved a resounding success for those members who got shares, First National is in the process of going public while EBS has declared its commitment to retaining its mutual status. ICS is owned by Bank of Ireland and only the future of Irish Nationwide remains uncertain.

But to become a member of the building society, customers must either be mortgage holders with a balance above £500 or hold an investment share account which entails a minimum balance of £10,000.

The State-owned banks are likely to provide few opportunities for those hoping to gain from free share windfalls as the Government will pocket all of the proceeds.

Even if a merger between TSB and ACC is approved and the merged entity floated, the State's coffers will be the main beneficiary.

In the insurance sector, seen by many as the last and best hope for windfall gains, demutualisation has not yet become the bandwagon that it became in the building society sector.

"There is no sign of many of the UK insurance mutual companies demutualising," says one London-based insurance industry analyst.

"In general terms, the mutuals are all strong. They have been helped by the strength in bond and equity markets and are under no pressure to demutualise."

However, the decision by Canada Life earlier this year to go the public route raised question marks over the future direction of companies like Standard Life and Scottish Provident, both of which have operations and policy-holders in this State.

Standard Life, Britain's largest mutual assurer, and Scottish Provident have both vehemently denied they have any plans to abandon their mutual status. But their assurances have been somewhat undermined by the behaviour of Canada Life which was equally vocal in denying such plans.

However, Scottish Provident remains adamant that it has no intention of abandoning its mutual status.

"We are very firmly a mutual company. The long-term benefits of that are so great that we will not demutualise," says Mr Eanna McCluskey, marketing manager with the group in Ireland.

Some customers have yet to be convinced, however. Although Mr McCluskey says the company has seen nothing like April 14th, when some 25,000 with-profits policies were taken out, business is still some 10 per cent above last year's levels.

The company has only just completed issuing all the policy documents and was forced to hire 40 temporary staff to help process the April influx. Scottish Provident's decision to increase the minimum monthly premium payment to £60 from £25, however, has greatly helped in stemming the tide of carpetbaggers.

Standard Life too is sticking to its assertion that it is not going to float. In the week after Easter, it too saw a flood of interest from those eager to jump on the demutualisation bandwagon. Some 30,000 with-profits policies, which would qualify holders for free shares, were sold in that week alone.

The company subsequently increased monthly premium payments to £50 from £10 and business is now back to normal levels, according to marketing manager Mr Paul Conheady.

However, he says that less than 1 per cent of those who took out a policy in that April week cancelled following receipt of cooling-off notices which included warnings that those who were buying in anticipation of a flotation might wish to reconsider.

Carpet-baggers have repeatedly been warned that putting hopes on a float can be risky.

Increasingly, customers may be heeding these warnings but the mere hint of a flotation can make a particular institution and its policies even more attractive to a would-be buyer.