Friends Provident’s 740,000 retail shareholders and Clive Cowdery have spent many summer weekends contemplating life in each other’s arms. Two years ago, old Resolution was planning a merger with the ex-mutual life assurer. It came to nothing. Now new Resolution is brewing a bid for Friends, while Friends has proposed a “counter-merger”. It’s hardly romantic, but this time the flirtation ought to lead somewhere.

Friends’ proposal to combine with Resolution under the life assurer’s banner, with Mr Cowdery as executive deputy chairman, has a headline-grabbing attraction. But mergers that revolve round complex agreements about management roles are often doomed. Furthermore, you don’t have to know Mr Cowdery that well to know that the inveterate dealmaker is unlikely to last long as a salaried employee of the combined company, no matter how many titles you give him.