The French insurance company Axa has agreed to sell it’s UK life assurance business in order to buyout fund Resolution for £2.75bn.

The fund already owns Friends Provident and intends to merge the two, saving £75m a year in costs. Fears are now mounting that the merger will lead to job cuts. It is thought that most of the savings – around 40 per cent – would hit sales and marketing, with the rest largely coming from customer service, IT and business support operations.

Axa’s UK business also includes around 1700 outsourced staff in India and the UK, however, these staff will not fall under the scope of the cost review.

Resolution will look to reorganise management and employees in the merged business under a 100-day plan. They said that savings were to be made by way of “a reduction in management and technical duplication”, merging offices and shutting some locations, streamlining teams, integrating IT systems and reducing supplier fees.