Aviva hands £1000 to staff as it says “thank you”

AVIVA is handing nearly £5 billion to shareholders, giving £1000 in shares to 22,000 staff and spending £385 million on wealth management business Succession Wealth.

Those are the latest moves from CEO Amanda Blanc as she shakes up the giant insurer -- a key player in the City that has been regarded as an underperformer for years.

She has sold eight foreign parts of the business for £7.5 billion, leaving the company focussed on the UK, Ireland and Canada.

It is under pressure from activist investor Cevian, which wants greater returns to shareholders. It may remain so even after today.

Blanc today unveiled plans to give investors £3.75 billion of the proceeds from those sales, on top of a £1 billion share buyback plan already announced.

The annual report, also out today, shows that Blanc was paid £3 million this year including a bonus of £1.76 million. That is up from total pay of £1.2 million last time.

Blanc said: “In the last 20 months we have moved apace. Aviva is now a much simple business. We have rebuilt our financial strength and returned capital to shareholders.”

She added: “People have been central to our success,” as she unveiled the £1000 in shares to staff a “thank you” for work done during trying times.

Like rivals including banks such as Lloyds, Aviva wants to expand into the growing wealth management sector. Today it said it would buy Succession Wealth, which it hopes will allow it to retain some of the £6 billion of pension and other assets that leave Aviva to be invested elsewhere each year.

The insurer said: “The addition of an advice offering will allow Aviva to better support its customers as they go through critical life decisions.”

Profits for the year fell 28% to £2.3 billion. Aviva has £240 million of shares in Russian firms – it aims to sell that holding off when possible.

Aviva shares rose 9p to 416p.