Michael Leahy will have €30m to spend in a bid to double Irish market share, writes Laura Slattery.

"How much am I going to get?" is the one question that Michael Leahy, the new chief executive of Standard Life in Ireland, is likely to be asked whenever he bumps into the company's members.

For Standard Life's history as a mutual is set to end, after the company made an abrupt U-turn on its commitment to mutual status earlier this year, citing capital constraints.

So from 2006, when the vote takes place, it could be goodbye to annual mutuality bonuses and hello to a nice windfall for around 90,000 qualifying Irish members.

How much they will get is currently anybody's guess, but Standard Life Ireland has received a windfall of its own courtesy of the company's Edinburgh head office: a €30 million cheque to invest in the operation over two years.

It is in this environment that Mr Leahy has re-joined Standard Life Ireland, where he has replaced the recently retired Rory O'Riordan.

At 32, Mr Leahy is younger than insurance company chief executives tend to be. He is, however, very much a company man, having started at the Dublin office as an actuarial student at the age of 17.

His most recent role in the company has been as marketing director for Standard Life's life and pensions business in the UK.

He held this job during the company's recent turbulent period of strategic reviews, regulatory changes, job losses and policy bonus cuts.

"It was an interesting time," says Mr Leahy. "But Standard Life in the UK, as in Ireland, deals primarily through intermediaries and we were able to explain the detail to them and the detail was often quite different from the headlines."

Mr Leahy denies that demutualisation means that the 250 people Standard Life employs here face an uncertain future.

The group has looked to sell off peripheral business units, but Standard Life Ireland's new €30 million cash injection, the bulk of which will be used to upgrade the company's "not exactly industry leading" technology systems, is proof that the Irish operation has made the cut.

"We wouldn't be investing €30 million to close the operation down," he says.

The company's share of the life assurance and pensions market is low at 3-4 per cent, and Mr Leahy hopes to double that figure over the next two or three years.

Product development is crucial, especially as it was the collapse in the sales of with-profits products that was cited by the group chief executive, Mr Sandy Crosbie, as one of the reasons why the company needed to raise extra capital. With-profits investments are smoothed investment products, where returns made in good years are held back to compensate for bad years. (Lately, there have been a lot of bad years.)

"A one-size-fits-all with-profits offering still has a place as part of a portfolio, but in a more sophisticated market you need a broader range of investment options," Mr Leahy says now.

These options include its new multi-manager fund, where Standard Life effectively acts as the access point for a pick 'n' mix selection of global investment managers.

With the Halloween income tax return deadline looming, there is also "a bit of a buzz" in the pensions market. The pensions market life assurance companies traditionally chase is made up of wealthy self-employed individuals seeking to avoid tax.

But a Government drive to boost pensions coverage among lower-income workers has given birth to Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs). Mr Leahy is deeply cynical about the whole idea.

"PRSAs have helped standardise charging structures and ensure good value for customers. But they are not going to encourage the mass population to suddenly start saving for retirement." The best product in the world would not make a difference, he believes.

"I've always been sceptical of initiatives from governments that try to boost savings in the lower income part of society," says Mr Leahy. "Because of means-tested benefits, it is arguable that lower income people should make any provision. The incentives the Government puts in front of them are quite perverse: You should save but if you do save we won't give you your medical card."

Standard Life isn't really playing the PRSA game, offering only a non-standard model aimed at the more profitable medium to high net-worth end of the market.

Meanwhile, the legacy of mis-selling in the endowment mortgages market during the 1980s has proved embarrassingly difficult for the industry to shake off.

Unlike their UK counterparts, Irish victims with massive policy shortfalls have not been compensated. "There has been a certain amount of buck-passing going on in the industry," says Mr Leahy. "Our view is quite clear. We sell through intermediaries. The intermediary is responsible for the advice they give you." (The intermediaries, in this case, being banks and building societies.)

Mr Leahy believes that in these slightly more transparent times, it is quality of service that will differentiate one company from another.

Although Standard Life still needs the support of 75 per cent of its voting members, it is almost certain that the company won't be part of the mutuality gang for much longer.

And it is not just the company that is going through some changes. Mr Leahy, who is from Cork, applied for the chief executive job with a view to settling down in his home country. His Dublin-born wife, Joan, is expecting their first child, due next week, and the couple are searching for somewhere permanent to live in the city.

"It's all change," he laughs. "New country, new job, new baby, new house. They tell you you shouldn't go through that many changes at once, but... My colleagues in Edinburgh said going for the job was a drastic move to avoid having a child with a Scottish accent."

Factfile

Name: Michael Leahy.

Age: 32.

Position: Chief executive of Standard Life in Ireland.

Family: Married to Joan.

Background: He joined Standard Life as an actuarial student in 1989, transferring to the head office in Edinburgh in 1992 and qualifying in 1994. Two years later, he helped establish the first Standard Life office in Germany and worked in Frankfurt as branch actuary for three years.

In 2000, he secured a first class honours MBA from the French business school INSEAD, before returning to Edinburgh as marketing director for life and pensions business in the UK.

Why he is in the news: He has just been appointed chief executive of Standard Life in Ireland.