What’s in a name?
This letter is the personal view of Steve Forbes. Please check the appropriateness to your individual position with your adviser before taking or refraining from any action.
Changing a brand seems to be a rite of passage for businesses.
There are countless examples such as Marathon becoming Snickers, Norwich Union became Aviva and Hearts from a football team to a laughing stock (only kidding Jambos).
In the financial services industry we have two more to look forward to in the coming months with Old Mutual Wealth becoming Quilter and Prudential, I kid you not, becoming Pru.
No doubt the companies employed to come up with these new brands have been paid fortunes and probably undertook numerous focus groups to ensure the name met approval. I suppose in the case of Quilter it makes some sense given they are no longer part of the Old Mutual group of companies and they are adopting the name of their parent company.
However, surely the brand company that came up with Pru rather than Prudential must have felt a bit guilty handing in their fee note. The statement from ‘Pru’ suggests this is to produce “a more positive future not just for our customers and the financial advisers we work with, but for our planet, society and the next generation too.” Blimey, who would have guessed that dropping ‘dential’ would have such an impact?!
Anyway, the most important thing is these new names are the only things changing in both companies, and if you have plans with either of them, apart from receiving something in the mail highlighting their shiny new logo and name change, nothing else alters.