Resolution

Financial services group Resolution helped push the FTSE 100 index higher this morning after better-than-expected half-yearly results.

Insurance pioneer Clive Cowdery has tabled a bid for a US insurer in the tycoon's first attempt to enter the American market.

Phil Hodkinson, the former finance director of HBOS, has bowed to pressure and resigned as senior independent director of Resolution, the life assurance group .

A former HBOS banker who signed off the firm's financial accounts in years leading up to its collapse collected £143,000 last year from life company consolidation vehicle Resolution.

Resolution Group has reported new business of £138m for the first nine months of the year, up 45% from £95m for the same period last year, led by the company's UK operations.

Resolution, the insurance acquisition specialist, has seen its shares leap today after it was upgraded by analysts because of its attractive dividend yield.

Resolution has confirmed its chairman Mike Biggs will leave the company after its governance overhaul.

Resolution has confirmed it will make no more acquisitions and abandoned plans to split Friends Life after revealing a 58% fall in profits.

Resolution is preparing a "self-managed" exit from Friends Life in 2014 that would see the company split between a fit-for-purpose life company and a closed life fund consolidator.

Ignis Asset Management's parent company Phoenix has ended takeover discussions with private equity company CVC Capital Partners after a disagreement on price.