Phoenix recruits former head of City watchdog

Phoenix Group, the UK's largest consolidator of closed life insurance funds, has appointed City grandee Sir Howard Davies as its new chairman.

Davies, who amongst other things was chairman of the Financial Services Authority between 1997 and 2003, will succeed Ron Sandler from October.

The news came as the firm also announced strong first half figures and upped its cash generation target by £100m, to between £600m and £700m.

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It also upped its long term cash generation target by £100m to £3.3bn from 2011-2016.

Alastair Lyons, Senior Independent Director at Phoenix, said the company's new appointment brought with him a "deep understanding of public company corporate governance and risk management, and a breadth of experience within Financial Services".

He also thanked Sandler for his contribution to the business.

Phoenix has lost several senior members of its management team in the last year.

Finance director Jonathan Yates left the firm in December 2011 to join Guardian Financial Services, while Lorraine Rees quit as head of investor relations in February.

Group assets under management in the first half of the year were £71.6bn at the end of June, compared to £72.1bn at the end of 2011.

The company put the decline down to the natural run-off of the life company assets, partly offset by market movements and a strong net inflow of £927m of third party assets.