Resolution, the vehicle of Clive Cowdery, the insurance tycoon, denied yesterday that its stock market float would be derailed by a planned Treasury review of offshore financial centres.
Resolution announced plans last week to raise £1 billion from investors. The Guernsey-registered company will seek to buy businesses in the life, general insurance, fund management and banking sectors.
However, Alistair Darling’s statement with his PreBudget Report on Monday suggested that the Treasury was considering a clamp-down on locations such as Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar. Promising a “review of regulatory arrangements”, the Chancellor told MPs: “Recent financial turbulence has highlighted potential problems with overseas territories and Crown dependencies, such as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. They attract banking customers with lower