LONDON: Prudential chief executive Tidjane Thiam is expected to apologise directly to shareholders when the insurer holds its annual general meeting on Monday, days after it was humiliatingly forced to pull its US$35.5bil bid for AIG’s Asian arm.
The botched bid, which racked up £450mil in adviser fees and other costs, has led investors including top 15 shareholder Schroders to call for Thiam to quit, although other Pru owners told Reuters on Friday that it would be premature to force him out.
Pru chairman Harvey McGrath, who has also faced calls to step down, said on Friday the “vast majority” of shareholders supported the company’s top management.
Thiam, who launched the takeover attempt in March after less than six months in the top job, is expected to say sorry to shareholders for incurring the bid costs and not clinching the deal, repeating an apology he first issued on Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
TIDJANE THIAM: "We’ll go back to plan A,
which was always about growth in Asia, and push it harder".
“I am very sorry that we had to spend the money and didn’t get the deal,” he said in the interview.
Thiam, seen as a high flier when he took over as the Pru’s head last October, is still expected to face fierce criticism from investors at the AGM in London, in marked contrast to the rapturous reception he received when attending the same meeting as chief executive designate last year.
Some shareholders are set to vote against the Pru’s remuneration report in protest over generous pay deals handed to some executives, while others are likely to call for a review of the company’s strategy in the wake of the failed bid.
The company is also expected to repeat earlier denials that the takeover attempt implied a lack of faith in its current strategy of pursuing capital-efficient growth with a focus on Asia.
“There was nothing about the AIA acquisition which was not in our strategy,” Thiam said on Friday in an interview with CNBC.
“We’ll go back to plan A, which was always about growth in Asia, and push it harder.”
Pru’s bid for AIG’s AIA unit, which would have ranked as the insurance sector’s biggest ever takeover, was designed to transform the company into Asia’s biggest foreign insurer, giving it a commanding position in one of the world’s fastest growing financial services markets.
But the insurer was forced to ditch the bid last week after its shareholders baulked at the price tag, and AIG rejected a reduced offer.
At the weekend, Pru denied a press report that it planned to resurrect the deal before the end of the year, calling speculation of a revived takeover bid “misguided and inaccurate.” — Reuters
- by thestar.com.my
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