Under the terms of the agreement, the shareholders of Thinc Destini will share up to £70 million based primarily on the financial performance of the business during 2009.
AXA UK has pledged a further £30 million to refinance Thinc Destini’s debt, which it accumulated through its acquisition strategy.
AXA has confirmed it intends to provide long-term incentivisation frameworks, rumoured to be worth between £200 million and £300 million, for management, key employees and new and existing advisers of Thinc Destini, to reward the delivery of the company’s business plan.
AXA intends to run Thinc as an independent financial services advisory firm and keep it separate from AXA UK’s product provider business. It will be rebranded as Thinc Group. The multi-distribution advisory business has more than 650 intermediaries and has approximately £3 billion of funds under advice and procured around £3 billion of mortgages for customers in 2005.
Commenting, Paul Evans, chief executive of AXA Sun Life, said: “This is a very exciting development for both AXA UK and Thinc Destini which, under our ownership, should benefit from the operational management expertise and global distribution experience of the AXA Group. Through this acquisition, we believe that AXA UK’s core business will gain an additional source of shareholder value. We see the potential for significant growth in this area and we intend to pursue that growth aggressively.”
Simon Chamberlain, chief executive officer at Thinc
Destini, added: “I am delighted that AXA UK is looking to acquire Thinc Destini and our Board has unanimously recommended all of our ordinary shareholders to accept the offer. The Thinc Destini Board believes that this represents a very good opportunity for us to build on the existing strengths of Thinc Destini under the new ownership of AXA UK.”
