New-look Britannic, now an ambitious bidder for closed life assurance funds, whose investments can be run by its fund management wing Britannic Asset Management, is moving the administration of its first acquisition, Cornhill Life, to Wythall.

Britannic already employs 735 administrative staff at the site, as well as some 500 selfemployed collectors, many of them part-time.

"Britannic is well position to become a leader in this field," said Paul Thompson, chief executive.

The Cornhill acquisition, together with a much better investment performance by Britannic Asset Management, has encouraged directors to declare a 12.4p final dividend, making 17.85p for the year.

At the same time, Mr Thompson set himself a target to raise Britannic's dividends by 11 per cent a year until 2009 - up from a the previous target of nine per cent.

This was coupled yesterday with a public commitment to seek a return of 12 per cent after tax on the purchase price of any new acquisitions.

The shares responded with a 231/2p bounce to 505p where they yield 3.5 per cent.

Britannic reported a fullyear achieved profit of £88 million for 2004, up from a comparative £85 million, and shareholders' funds of £1.095 billion or 557p a share.

Holders of traditional with-profit policies get an annual bonus of 0.25 per cent, while those with unitised with-profits pensions get three per cent.

Britannic pointed out that although the with-profits fund delivered a pre-tax return of 9.5 per cent last year, following 11.4 per cent in 2003, losses in the two previous years mean there has been "no significant investment return" over the past four years.

A 25-year Britannic ordinary branch endowment maturing now and taken out by a man aged 29 at the time for premiums of £50 a month is paying out £55,021 - equivalent to an annual return of 9.2 per cent after tax on premiums of £15,000.

Inflation over the 25 years has averaged 3.4 per cent.

While looking for more closed funds to acquire, Britannic is seeking to boost the £4.5 billion of funds belonging to third parties run by looking in addition to some £10 billion of internal funds.

The medium-term objective is to get back on the "panel" of fund managers used by big institutions.

Meantime, there will be a drive to sell packaged investments to private individuals through independent advisers.

Britannic said it expects to see the benefits of the Cornhill acquisition and the repositioning of Britannic Asset Management coming through in the 2005 results.