Throwback Thursday: Maxwell takes stake in insurer
Insurance Post’s Throwback Thursday steps back in time to December 1985 to remind you what was going on this week in insurance history when publisher Robert Maxwell bought a stake in an insurer.
12 December 1985: Maxwell buys stake in insurer
Robert Maxwell, publisher of Mirror Group Newspapers, bought a 5% stake in Britannia Arrow for £10.2m.
Maxwell said he bought the stake at the request of Britannia chairman Geoffrey Rippon to “help the company’s defence against an unwanted bid”.
Maxwell died in 1991 after falling overboard into the Atlantic Ocean from his yacht, named Lady Ghislaine after his daughter.
His death triggered the collapse of his publishing empire as banks called in loans.
Rippon, a Conservative MP, died in 1997.
Britannia Arrow was a business that was renamed Invesco MIM in 1990, and then Amvescap after merging with Aim Investments.
In 2007, the company reverted to the Invesco name.
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