AMP Chairman Peter Willcox has announced he will retire from the board of the financial services group.

Mr Willcox, who joined the board in September 2002, made the announcement at the group’s general annual meeting last week.

He saw AMP through its blackest period from the end of 2002 when the company lost $7 billion in Britain. But now that the company is “no longer in crisis”, Mr Willcox has made way for a new chairman he says will “lead the board in its next phase”.

A replacement has not yet been named.