Inbrief

Friends Provident, the FTSE 100 financial services group, is giving £20million ($36m) to the Friends Provident Foundation this month. The endowment, realized from shares unclaimed following the group’s listing in 2001, will be used to support non-profit bodies, mainly those that work with the financially excluded and in medical research, an area the company has traditionally supported. The foundation came into being in the same year, following the demutualization of Friends’ Provident Life Office, and the company has since made an annual £250,000 contribution.