Clive Cowdery, the energetic chairman of Resolution, is expected to emerge as chairman of the combined group if his closed life consolidator succeeds in its £8.3 billion merger plans with Friends Provident, the insurer.

A statement is expected this morning confirming the news, first reported in The Times on Saturday, that the companies are in talks to create a merger of equals. They are believed to have resolved who will lead the new firm and hope to announce details of a deal within a fortnight.

Mike Biggs, the Resolution chief executive, is expected to play the same role at the combined company, but has agreed to hand over to Philip Moore, his opposite number at Friends Provident, in the future.

Mr Cowdery founded Resolution in 2003 with £500,000 of his own money and has built it to a market capitalisa-tion of £4.3 billion by buying up life funds that are no longer writing new business.

His firm has grown rapidly through acquisitions, first of closed life funds, and then through the purchase of Abbey National’s life insurance business, which included open funds, for £3.6 billion last May. He approached Friends Provident last year, but was initially rebuffed.

Sir Adrian Montague, chairman of Friends Provident, could stay on the board as the senior nonexecutive director of the combined group.

Friends Provident, which is worth £4 billion and which celebrates its 175th anniversary this year, has also made a string of recent acquisitions, including a majority stake in F&C Asset Management. It is now keen to access new cashflows to allow its business to grow further.

The insurer set out a plan last November to triple new business profits in the UK from £64 million in 2005 to between £180 million and £200 million by 2008.

Confirmation of the planned deal with Resolution today could prompt a counter-bid or spark a wave of consolidations within the insurance industry.

Takeover speculation has surrounded Friends Provident since it floated in 2001. There have been rumours that JC Flowers, the American private equity firm, had approached Standard Life and AXA, the French insurer, about the possibility of combined approaches for Friends Provident.

Resolution and Friends Provident declined to comment.

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