Friends Provident’s dismissal of Clive Cowdery’s latest attempt to woo the life assurer’s board into a deal with his Guernsey-based Resolution vehicle looks pretty final. Then again, so did the previous two rejections.

But looks can be deceptive, and one person familiar with the thinking of the Friends board said on Monday that the statement was meant to send a message. “The share ratio doesn’t make sense,” the person said. “What we wanted to signal to Clive is that he is well short.”