Sant Uk.10te% Regulatory News (SAN)

7 Jun 2006 08:24

Banco Santander Central Hispano SA07 June 2006 MATERIAL FACT Abbey National plc ("Abbey") announces that it has entered into an agreementwith Resolution plc ("Resolution") under which Abbey will sell its entire lifeinsurance business to Resolution for a fixed cash consideration of EUR 5.2billion (£3.6 billion). This represents 97% of the embedded Value of thebusinesses being sold as reported by Abbey at 31 December 2005, and will notgenerate capital gains for Grupo Santander. The life businesses being sold are Scottish Mutual Assurance plc, ScottishProvident Limited and Abbey National Life plc, as well as the two offshore lifecompanies, Scottish Mutual International plc and Scottish ProvidentInternational Life Assurance Limited. Abbey will retain all of its branch-basedinvestment and asset management business and James Hay, its market-leadingself-invested personal pension company, and its Wrap business. Separately, in order to provide continuity of product supply and service to itscustomers, Abbey has entered into two distribution agreements with Resolutionunder which: • Abbey will distribute through its retail network Abbey-branded life and pensions products manufactured by Resolution; and • Abbey will continue to be the exclusive distributor of Scottish Provident protection products to intermediaries. In addition, Abbey has secured exclusive access to provide retail bankingproducts to Resolution's five million policyholders. It is envisaged that some 2,000 Abbey employees will transfer to Resolution aspart of the transaction. Resolution will continue to operate the life operationsfrom the existing Abbey premises in Glasgow. Resolution will also maintain theoperations in Dublin, the Isle of Man and Hong Kong. Completion of the transaction is expected during the third quarter of 2006 andis conditional upon, among other things, approval from the Financial ServicesAuthority and relevant overseas regulators and the approval of Resolution'sshareholders. Boadilla del Monte (Madrid), June 07th 2006 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange