Resolution, the private equity-style vehicle created by Clive Cowdery, the insurance entrepreneur, to buy and turn around troubled financial companies is to float next month.

Mr Cowdery, who has built a team to run the business including John Tiner, the former head of the Financial Services Authority, said the float would be by means of a placing of shares.

The placing would be worth between £500 million and £1 billion, and the shares would go to "institutions supportive of its restructuring goals," Resolution said in a statement this morning.

The company would acquire businesses with a view to restructuring them, improving their efficiency and then selling them for a profit to realise value for shareholders.

The target firms, initially in the life assurance and asset management sectors in the UK, would be expected to generate returns "consistent with (Resolution's) target of a mid-teens percentage gross internal rate of return".

Mr Cowdery has put together a five-strong team, including himself and Mr Tiner, to identify acquisitions and turn the companies around.

The team will invest £20 million between them and will receive returns from the profits generated by the various deals Resolution carries out.

The team will operate as a private partnership, and Resolution itself will be incorporated in Guernsey for tax reasons, to avoid the potential for double taxation on investors.

In a conference call to journalists, Mr Tiner said the company itself, once quoted, had nonetheless agreed to be bound by the usual City rules on corporate governance.

"The way the company will be run will be very much like any other FTSE company," he said. He refused to say how much each individual team member would contribute. "That's a private matter. It's our joint partnership."

He also refused to comment on potential acquisitions, though it has been suggested Resolution might target the insurance arm of HBOS. "We will be talking to people all the time.

There will be rumours all the time. We will never comment on them." He also refused to comment on a suggestion that the company might be interested in New Star Asset Management, the troubled fund manager.

Resolution will effectively operate as a private equity business, and hopes to offer similar rates of returns to such funds. Initial investors in the company will be expected to put in substantial amounts of further cash as potential targets are identified and will get pre-emption rights that will allow them to maintain their stakes.

Businesses bought would typically be kept for between two and four years before being sold on. Resolution might also issue its own shares to vendors of target companies.

Mr Cowdery built the original Resolution insurance business into a FTSE 100 company before selling it to Pearl Assurance late in 2007 for £4.9 billion.

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