Setting standards

THE FRIDAY INTERVIEW/Audrey McLaren, chief executive Standard Life Ireland:A "STANDARD LIFER" is how Audrey McLaren, who joined the Edinburgh-headquartered company straight after school, describes herself. After a 28-year career in the former mutual investments company, McLaren's latest role has brought her to the helm of Standard Life Ireland.

And despite clocking in for the first time on April 1st this year - "an inauspicious date, perhaps, to arrive" - McLaren says she has settled in well to her new role, her new country-of-residence and her new office, which overlooks the now wintry treetops of St Stephen's Green.

There's just the small matter of an air conditioning system that, just like a typical crunch-era day on the equity markets, tends to be a touch volatile.

Despite third-quarter sales figures that - "no surprise" - are substantially weaker than last year, McLaren is relatively upbeat.

"Clearly there's a tough market and it's been a tough year and it will continue to be tough... But we can definitely see that we're in pensions season."

With the run-up to the Hallowe'en paper-filing tax deadline as brisk as can be expected, the sales outcome for the full year now hangs on how many times the phone rings between now and the November 17th online tax-filing deadline, this being the last day that investors can backdate tax-free pension contributions to 2007.

The problem is, these days when the phone rings it's less likely to be a broker with a roster of high-net-worth clients looking for a sales adviser to take a lump sum off their hands and more likely to be customers fretting about the safety of their investments.

"We're just dealing with a general loss of confidence," says McLaren. But, as the group-wide third-quarter financial statement put it, Standard Life has the resilient balance sheet and strong solvency margin to reassure them.

"We've also got the backing of the UK financial services compensation scheme, so we can give them a very robust response on that," she adds.

But it seems there are more than just security nerves at play in the industry: there is simply less money up for grabs.

At £228 million, Standard Life's Irish sales for the first nine months of the year have sunk 44 per cent on the same period last year. This compares to an overall 28 per cent decline for the life and pensions market as a whole, according to data from consultants Life Strategies.

The company's focus on single premium lump sum investments is the reason for its greater sales decline. That sector of the market is down 47 per cent, according to Life Strategies.

There is room for everybody in the market, she believes.

"We've got a particular type of strategy in concentrating on the pensions and investment side rather than the broader range of products that the Hibernians of this world would offer," she says.

Where Standard Life has been quick off the mark, according to McLaren, is to more heavily market cash fund alternatives for battered investors. It has also improved the allocation rates on its pensions, which she says has gone down well with the army of influential financial advisers who recommend Standard Life products to their retirement-saving clients.

McLaren agrees, however, that the private pensions coverage rates may have reached a plateau (CSO data shows that coverage rates have hovered at 52-55 per cent of the population for years despite extensive campaigns by the government and insurance companies). And the global financial crisis hasn't exactly helped.

"People's willingness to save into a pension has reduced significantly from the previous quarter and that's certainly a concern, albeit understandable," she says.

"If people are struggling to pay their mortgage, you're going to look after putting a roof over your head first before you start thinking about putting money into a pension."

But whatever happens with the domestic Irish business, McLaren has also got the "exciting" offshore business to look after.

Having set up Standard Life International in Dublin in late 2006 to sell offshore investments back into the UK, the group merged the business with Standard Life Ireland when McLaren took over as chief executive earlier this year (from Michael Leahy, who left to pursue his own ambitions).

Standard Life's 260-strong Irish workforce now flits between both sides of the business, which are housed together in its offices on St Stephen's Green.

With offshore bond sales at the international arm more than trebling in the first half of 2008 compared with 2007, the company needs to increase its headcount to support its rapid growth. It also plans to sell offshore products into other European countries and potentially beyond Europe, according to McLaren.

The Scottish 47-year-old comes to Dublin from Frankfurt, where she was operations director of Standard Life's German business.

Altogether she spent more than five years in Germany in two stints, having promptly shaken the dust off her school days German, which, "except on the odd skiing holiday", she hadn't used in 20 years.

"Once I got my head round the old insurance vocabulary I was fine...I've occasionally dreamt in German as well. That's a lovely legacy," she says.

She is proud to have stayed with Standard Life - for which she has also trained insurance managers in China - for so long even if that wasn't her original plan.

"I couldn't decide what course to do at uni, so I took a job in Standard Life and loved it so much I never got round to going to uni," says McLaren.

She says she feels that her personal ethos matches that of the company, which she believes hasn't really changed since demutualising in 2006 and now has one of the largest share registers of any company in the world.

The only thing that's new is the quarterly reporting to the stock market and other regulatory compliance procedures that must be followed.

"The kind of discipline and focus that brings is something new and very positive for the company. It's just over two years since the company listed, so it's a journey we're still on."

ON THE RECORD

Name:Audrey McLaren

Position:chief executive of Standard Life Ireland.

Background and education:Audrey is from Edinburgh. She joined Standard Life in 1980 as a kind of gap-year "filler" while deciding which university course to pursue. She then became a "Standard Lifer".

Career:She has a predominantly operations background within Standard Life, and was most recently operations director of Standard Life Germany.

Age:47

Family: Single with immediate family based in Scotland.

Something you might not expect: She is neither an actuary nor an accountant.

Something you might expect:She is an avid golfer