National Australia Bank (NAB) has sold its British life insurance subsidiary, National Australia Life Company. The sale to Century Life will be completed at the end of the month, and follows the announcement earlier this year of the NAB’s strategic alliance with Legal & General, which now provides life insurance products and administrative services to customers of the NAB’s three UK regional banks.

The sale came hot on the heels of an announcement by CEO Frank Cicutto that the NAB will support the proposed demerger of the AMP and will also take part in AMP’s $1.2 billion share rights issue. The decision led to immediate market speculation that the NAB is getting set to make a bid for the ailing financial services giant.

Mr Cicutto first began building up a strategic stake in AMP in August. The bank told the market it wanted up to 174 million AMP shares at $5.60 a share, but only secured 34.4 million at $6 a share. That’s still better than in 1999, when Mr Cicutto made his first attempt to take over AMP – with an offer of $21 a share.