When Equitable Life is no more – and it won’t be long before the death bell tolls – there will be a belter of a book to be written about all the shenanigans that have taken place at the mutual.
Although the savings institution goes back more than 250 years, it is the last 20 years that are the most entertaining and lurid.
Over this period, customers’ savings have been pillaged, policyholder has been pitted against policyholder, greed and incompetence have shone in the boardroom (nothing new there, ed) and there have been love affairs at the highest level (a certain former chief executive falling in ravenous love with a secretary half his age).
Throw in Pussy Galore (disgruntled policyholder and distinguished actress Honor Blackman) and a monumental battle for justice and you have the makings of a thriller. Patrick Marber could even turn the book into a racy screenplay fit for the National Theatre (I’ve met his delightful mother so I might have a word in her shell-like).
Looking back, there is no doubt that Equitable Life represents one of the darkest episodes in the recent history of Britain’s financial services industry.
In their droves, like lambs to the slaughter, hundreds of thousands of upstanding people – judges, lawyers, doctors and yes lots of journalists – were hoodwinked into buying Equitable policies. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
‘It’s an Equitable Life, Henry’, trilled the adverts. It was all so compelling. No commission paid to greedy financial advisers and ALL your money securely invested to ensure a future retirement without financial worry. Nirvana.
The media were kept sweet. In my early days as a rookie financial journalist on a trade magazine, when I knew no better, I would be lunched by a sleazy Equitable PR man in a City members’ club where the dress code for waitresses was minimalist.
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