Friends Life consolidates Manchester offices
PENSIONS giant Friends Life has announced that it is to consolidate its two Greater Manchester bases onto a single site by mid-2012.
The company said that the consolidation was a result of a review of its various divisions since the 2009 takeover of the Friends Provident business by Resolution and a wave of subsequent acquisitions.
Friends Life acquired the Bupa Health Assurance business in October last year, which has left it with two major operations in Greater Manchester – 140 staff work at its legacy Friends Provident business in Spring Gardens and 120 people work at Bupa Health Assurance’s offices at Anchorage (pictured) in Salford Quays.
Friends Life now plans to consolidate these operations into the Salford Quays office by the end of the second quarter of 2012.
An announcement was made to the firm’s staff yesterday and consultation has begun alongside the firm’s main employers’ union, Unite, but a spokeswoman stressed to TheBusinessDesk.com that no employees have been told as yet that their posts are “at risk”.
Although the consolidation of its Manchester offices could eventually lead to redundancies, she said that the firm would work with staff beforehand “to look at opportunities to relocate people to other offices or redeploy” to other parts of the business.
David Hynam, executive director of operations at Friends Life, said: “The proposals announced are part of a review of our office locations across the enlarged business to rationalise sites and reduce fragmentation. Our strategy to reduce our cost base can be achieved by consolidating into fewer office locations and today’s announcement helps us to achieve this objective.
“These decisions, whilst necessary, are extremely difficult ones to make and we are very mindful of the impact on our people. We will do all we can to help them through this period.”
The restructuring will be the second major downsizing of the Friends Provident Business to be carried out within three years. In 2008, the firm announced that it was closing its office in the Manchester Express building, where it employed around 460 staff.
Friends Life said that it had informed the Unite union, to whom many of its employees belong, ahead of yesterday’s announcement. Unite’s national officer, David Fleming, said it was “devastating news” for employees.
“Workers in Manchester have faced this before with the many job losses in 2009 when Friends Provident moved from the Express Building, at that time the then CEO of Friends Provident, Trevor Matthews, said the company ’remained committed to its Manchester operations’.
“Sadly, that commitment has lasted less than two years.”
