It took 18 months for insurance veteran Clive Cowdery and a Lazard team led by Jon Hack to put together a high-profile board, raise Europe's largest private placement, and find the right acquisition. But Resolution Life Group, a new acquisition company they created, finally won its prize with the £850m (€1.3bn) buy-out of Royal & Sun Alliance Life last month.

The sale of the life business is expected to prompt other disposals. Investors have long seen potential in life funds closed to new business but Hack said the right catalysts to release value had been missing. He thinks Resolution, chaired by Brian Williamson, former chairman of Liffe before it merged with Euronext, has found the key to unlocking a long-term and dependable yield with "some upside potential".