Esure founder Peter Wood: 'I want to buy Gocompare'

Esure founder Peter Wood says he wants to buy Gocompare.

Esure already owns a 50% interest in the price comparison site, but Wood wants to buyout his partner and Gocompare chief executive Hayley Parsons.

He could then roll Gocompare into Esure before a flotation.

Asked whether there would be a conflict of interest, Wood says: “We are not the biggest customer," adding "there are Chinese Walls".

Wood reckons he can float Esure for £2bn, making it one of the biggest flotations in recent years.

Wood founded Direct Line in 1985 before selling it to Royal Bank of Scotland. He ruled out making a bid for Direct Line, which is up for sale by 2013 under an EU-enforced mandate

“I’d end up having to sack thousands of people and end up with loads of spare properties. It is not the sort of thing I want to do in the last few years of my working life”, he explains.

Wood asserts his concerns about outsourcing customer-facing roles abroad.

"We promoted Sheila’s (car insurance for women) more and closed down India. India’s fine for back office work, but customer facing doesn’t work," Wood says. "I am not very keen on shipping jobs out of the UK. If you can get jobs done, and done well at the same cost, you do them in Britain."

The entrepreneur, revealed that he pays all his taxes and had a dig at billionaire top shop boss Philip Green.

"I have paid all my tax. I’ve been one of the highest taxpayers for years. I’m not a Philip Green with a wife in Monaco," Wood says in an interview the Daily Mail today.