In a surprise move, the Aviva chief executive has stepped down.
Mark Wilson left Britain’s biggest insurance company saying it was “time for new leadership to take the group to the next phase of its development”.
Sir Adrian Montague is the group’s non-executive chairman and will replace Wilson until a new chief executive is found. The insurance group has said it will hope to replace Wilson in the next four months.
Montague said: “The board would like to thank Mark for what he has achieved in his six years at Aviva. He leaves the group in a far stronger state than when he joined.”
“There is much further to go in accelerating our strategic development and enhancing shareholder value. We have agreed with Mark this is the right time for a new leader to ensure Aviva delivers to its full potential.”
Wilson joined the group in 2013 and the group has significantly improved, although he came under fire when he took a board seat at rival asset manager BlackRock.
Wilson replaced by Andrew Moss, who was ousted by shareholders.
Wilson said: “When I joined Aviva, the company was in poor health. It is very different today. I have achieved what I wanted to achieve and now it’s time for me to move on to new things.”
All in all, Wilson’s contribution to the insurance group was seen as a positive one. Ashik Musaddi, who is a European insurance analyst at JP Morgan Cazenove, said:
“In the past Aviva used to struggle on capital with high balance sheet risk and limited growth prospects, however now Aviva is in a much better shape.”
“In line with the share price performance of UK life peers, shares have been under pressure as well, which in our view is partly driven by Brexit-related concerns and partly related to lack of growth visibility. Aviva has market leading positions in businesses like pensions, annuities, non life business and we believe Aviva should be able to capture growth in near future.”
Shares (LON: AV) in the group rose by 2% following the news and are currently trading at 473,95 (0831GMT).