Ousted Prudential boss suffered 'murky assassination'

Prudential shareholders accused the insurer today of a carrying out a “murky assassination” in its ousting of long-time chief executive Jonathan Bloomer.

The Pru’s annual meeting in London heard that investors were unhappy at the group for keeping them in the dark about the reasons for the recent removal of Mr Bloomer, who had been at the helm for five years.

They also expressed dismay that Mr Bloomer was leaving after the company had reported rising profits last year and a good start to 2005.

Mr Bloomer, who leaves today, had come under pressure from institutional shareholders following his surprise decision last year to raise £1bn (€1.5bn) towards driving UK growth.

Chairman David Clementi today paid tribute to Mr Bloomer, but said the board believed it made the right decision in requesting his departure.

Shareholder John Farmer accused Mr Clementi of inconsistency and said he should have shown shareholders a bit more of the thinking of the board about the reasons for the change of chief executive and what pressure institutional shareholders had put on the company to remove Mr Bloomer.

“We seem to be in the anomalous situation of a tribute being paid to a chief executive who is mysteriously being replaced,” Mr Farmer said.

“Arguably, a murky assassination has gone on.”

Another shareholder said he did not feel Mr Bloomer should have had to carry all the responsibility for the problems that the company had faced with investors unhappy about the rights issue.

“I’m rather disappointed to see that the board has got rid of Jonathan Bloomer when he seemed to have done quite a good job,” the shareholder said.