By the time of the merger, National Life had branches in five leading English cities together with agencies in Hamburg, Asia and Mauritius.
With the support of Falk, Keynes introduced a policy of active trading of the fixed interest stocks, coupled with investment in equities.
“Keynes was the first to give [investment trading] the seal of respectability and to apply it to a life assurance fund.” [3] Post-war growth was slow.
[3] Harry Oram led a review of strategy in 1960 and elected for growth over consolidation with the objective of reducing unit costs.
Investment policy once again emphasised the importance of equities, which reached 50% of assets at its peak – though with less successful results than in the Keynes’ era.
[1] National Mutual became increasingly dependent on sophisticated pension products aimed at high earners and lacked the scale to compete in the mainstream market.