Aviva has issued an apology following the public censure delivered by the FCA on the back of its investigation into the insurer’s announcement on preference shares in March 2018.

In a final notice regarding the investigation, the FCA said: “Aviva contravened Listing Rule 1.3.3R and Transparency Rule 1A.3.2. It did so by failing to take reasonable care to ensure that information in an announcement on 8 March 2018 regarding its ability to cancel certain Preference Shares issued by Aviva and General Accident at par, and its consideration of
whether or not to do so, was not misleading and did not omit anything likely to affect the import of the information in the announcement.”

Aviva has accepted the decision. In a public statement, it said: “This was a disappointing episode for which we are sorry and lessons have been learned. We recognise the uncertainty created for preference shareholders two years ago whilst we were considering our options and we subsequently made discretionary goodwill payments to impacted preference shareholders.”

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