By Scott Wright
SCOTTISH Friendly is to have a new chairman for the first time since since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.
Michael Walker will step down after an 11-year tenure during which Scotland’s last remaining mutual has steadily grown, with assets under management increasing to £5.3 billion from £704 million, and membership numbers expanding to more than 700,000 from 489,000. The mutual has completed a series of major deals over that time, including the acquisitions of Marine & General Mutual in 2015, and a £2.4 billion book of life and pensions business from Canada Life UK last year. Last week Scottish Friendly reported sales had increased by 12 per cent to £13.5 million in the year to December 31.
Mr Walker, a former managing partner of Maclay Murray & Spens, will be replaced by David Huntley, a director and chair of the board risk committee at the mutual. Mr Huntley has spent more than 30 years in financial services, including a spell as chief executive of Swiss Re Australia. Mr Walker, who recently stepped down as chairman of Walkers Shortbread, said: “I am incredibly proud of Scottish Friendly’s achievements over the past 11 years and how far we have come as a group. We have enjoyed exponential growth which has allowed us to focus continually on improving the value and service we offer to members. I am very thankful for all the hard work my colleagues across the business have put in over the last decade and feel extremely fortunate and privileged to have been part of such a great team.”
The mutual said Mr Huntley becomes chairman at a “hugely exciting” time for Scottish Friendly, which declared that organic sales of savings and investments “have reached a new peak” despite the global uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Huntley said: “It is an honour to take over from Michael who has overseen an incredible and transformative period in Scottish Friendly’s long history.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here