MULTI-BILLION pound business by Southampton- based Skandia Group is sparking a major jobs bonanza locally as the company takes over yet another city centre property.

The Southampton success story of the insurance giant just keeps growing and growing, with the investment and pensions operation set to create a further 450 city centre jobs this year as staff move into the newly-built Liberty House in Commercial Road.

This comes as the company reveals a staggering 106 per cent increase in business last year generating a total of £3.8 billion of new premium income, an increase of

£2 billion compared to 1999.

Skandia, with its UK headquarters in a landmark office block opposite the Civic Centre, is looking to create around 250 new jobs in Southampton during 2001, as well as a further 200 temporary staff to assist during the tax year end period. Since it established its UK headquarters in Southampton in 1979, the company has made a strong impact on the area.

Besides presently employing 1,771 people in the city, it has become closely involved with the community, including becoming the major sponsor of the world-famous yachting regatta, now known as Skandia Life Cowes Week.

Jo Gilbey, company spokesman, said: "Our business doubled in 2000.

"Despite the additional space taken in Mountbatten House last year, the forecast increase in staff required to handle this volume of business, including the additional staff specifically needed to accommodate tax year end, means that space within all of our Southampton locations, Skandia House, Mountbatten House, Queens Keep and the BBC building, is at a premium.

"We aim to provide an attractive working environment for staff and have therefore decided to expand into a fifth head office location.

"This mirrors our tremendous success with the company growing rapidly and another building will help us ensure we can meet the challenges of the future. We are taking on the lease of the whole of Liberty House, two floors are currently let to another company and we will occupy the other four in a staged move starting next month."

The latest results puts Skandia into the top ten life companies in the UK, possibly in the upper half of the league table.

Alan Wilson, the company's managing director in the UK, said: "We consistently grew faster than the UK market throughout the 1990's and it is a tremendous achievement to comprehensively beat our 27 per cent per annum compound growth rate in 2000. It is particularly pleasing to see that this increase in business applies across all of the main operating companies.

"We have a strong record of innovation, especially in the investment area where the company is synonymous with the multi-manager approach we pioneered in the UK 17 years ago.

"Skandia has always placed particular importance on service and is delighted to retain 'five star' service ratings in the UK, and for Royal Skandia to win top place in awards for offshore providers, at the same time as growing new premiums aggressively.''