Standard Life has stepped up its fight against a demutualisation campaign by a group of policyholders, saying conversion to a public company would mean lower returns and higher costs for members. Europe's largest mutual life insurer is facing a vote on demutualisation on June 27th, forced by so-called carpetbaggers, headed by Monaco-based Australian policy-holder Mr Fred Woollard.

Standard Life has set out its case for staying mutual in a document being sent out to its 2.3 million members. Some 150,000 policy-holders are in the Republic, of whom 70,000 stand to profit from windfalls in the event of demutualisation.