Repute in tatters: Mark Hartigan
The discredited boss who tried to promote mutual insurer LV to a US buyout agency is making an attempt to bag a £20 million bonus at his newest enterprise.
Mark Hartigan, a former Military colonel, was pressured to give up LV after members voted towards his controversial plan at hand the 181-year-old mutual to non-public fairness barons at Bain Capital.
He argued on the time that the personal fairness deal was obligatory for LV’s long-term survival. Now he’s accused of utilizing ‘the identical scare ways’ at insurance coverage tech firm Wefox, the place he turned chairman and chief government after leaving LV. He was ousted following a marketing campaign by the Mail on Sunday and Every day Mail.
The £530 million deal he had tried to concoct was overturned in 2021 when he didn’t garner sufficient help from LV policyholders.
Regardless of this disastrous episode, Hartigan walked away with £3.5 million from his three years on the mutual, together with a £500,000 ‘golden goodbye’.
Wefox is a Berlin-based enterprise that was valued at £3.6 billion lower than two years in the past. However fintechs have since fallen out of favour with buyers.
In a memo circulated to shareholders earlier this month – first reported by Sky Information – Hartigan warned that Wefox might grow to be bancrupt ‘in August, or probably even earlier’. He plans to shut a lot of subsidiaries to stem losses.
However the Mail on Sunday understands Hartigan has additionally put Wefox up on the market and is in superior talks to promote the enterprise to Ardonagh, a number one London insurance coverage dealer.
If he succeeds, sources say he’ll decide up a £20 million bonus for finishing the deal. One disgruntled Wefox investor mentioned Hartigan had been ‘making an attempt to frighten all of us into believing the enterprise is in terminal bother, however we do not imagine him.
‘That is precisely the kind of scare ways he used at LV when he was making an attempt to promote the enterprise on a budget to Bain Capital,’ the investor added. ‘Wefox is basically a quick rising and sound enterprise that simply wants additional funding.’
One other supply added: ‘Hartigan is placing most strain on buyers to approve his plan to promote at a knockdown worth to Ardonagh – and gather his [£20 million] bonus.
‘However a few of the buyers are discussing the right way to combat towards it, take away him and provide you with another plan.’
The vote to maintain LV – previously often called Liverpool Victoria – from Bain’s clutches was a victory for mutuality and LV has since recovered. It posted a pre-tax revenue of £107 million in 2023, a giant turnaround from the £145 million loss the earlier 12 months.
David Hyman, who changed Hartigan as chief government, has vowed to maintain LV’s mutual standing and defend it from asset-strippers.
Various personal fairness takeovers of family names together with division retailer Debenhams have been closely criticised.
The proposed sale of LV was significantly controversial because the life insurer is owned by policyholders and run solely for his or her profit. It was arrange in 1843 to assist the poor of Liverpool pay for a dignified funeral for his or her family members and remains to be owned by multiple million of its members.
Hartigan and former LV chairman Alan Cook dinner left with their reputations in tatters after spending greater than £30 million of policyholders’ cash on the doomed Bain deal. Hartigan was branded ‘shameless’ by Labour MP Gareth Thomas, chairman of Parliament’s all-party group on mutuals, having ‘taken members for fools at each probability he had’.
Cook dinner, a former managing director of the Put up Workplace, has additionally come beneath fireplace for writing an e mail saying sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft had ‘their palms within the until.’ He apologised final month. Wefox is backed by a few of the world’s largest tech buyers, together with the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala.
Ardonagh’s buyers embody the Abu Dhabi Funding Authority, Mubadala’s sister firm.
Wefox declined to touch upon the Ardonagh sale speak or Hartigan’s bonus however insisted he would lead the agency ‘by the following section of growth’. This includes ‘a consolidation and focus of Wefox’s worldwide actions’ after years of speedy development, a spokesman added.
Ardonagh was additionally approached for remark.
