Aviva succession is shaping up for a good scrap

I was feeling pretty grateful towards Richard Harvey. It has been a desolate landscape for insurance writers on the national newspapers in the past few months, so when the chief executive of Aviva announced unexpectedly that he was retiring, I was glad of the diversion.

Some in the City were happy for an opportunity to beat up Harvey over his failed £17bn Prudential takeover attempt of last March and intimate that he was leaving Aviva under a cloud.

There's no doubt that he's going at least three years earlier than he would have done had the deal come off. Or that the Prudential debacle is seen as a blot on his otherwise immaculately clean M&A copybook. But I still buy his story that, now the way is clear, Harvey is happy to retire.

I'm more interested in what kind of dealmaker his replacement Andrew Moss might be. As financial director, Moss was at Aviva for some of its biggest acquisitions - RAC and AmerUS - and is thought to have been one of the strongest supporters of an approach to the Pru.

Analysts are split on whether he will be more or less aggressive on the acquisition front than Harvey, whose departure pretty much puts the kibosh on any near-future tie-up with the Pru. After all, the only potential carrot for Prudential chief executive Mark Tucker to back a deal was the prospect of replacing Harvey as chief executive of the combined group.

Another question still to be answered is, where now for Aviva's other top executives? Patrick Snowball has long been seen as the chief executive-designate, having proved his mettle as a cost-cutter at the UK business in the year since he was promoted to head of Aviva's UK operations.

Speculation is that he was passed over for the top job because the board wants a new generation of leaders for the company and, at 56, he was deemed a little too old. But 56 is not too old to go elsewhere and analysts say that they won't be surprised if in the medium-term there is an announcement from Snowball.

Philip Scott, the well-regarded head of Aviva's international operation, will become financial director, leaving his job up for grabs.

Expect in the next month or so to see some interesting speculation on Scott's replacement, because there are some ambitious young names in the frame, including Tidjane Thiam, 44, the high-flying head of Aviva's European operations; Mark Hodges, 41, head of the UK life business; and Simon Machell, 43, who runs the UK general insurance business, including RAC.

Watching Moss's rapid advancement - he joined Aviva as financial director less than three years ago - must be a strange sensation for Nick Prettejohn, who was chief executive of Lloyd's when Moss was financial director .

Now Moss is months from becoming chief executive of the world's fifth-largest insurer, while Prettejohn is still sweating it out at the Pru, where he has the unenviable job of sorting out the insurer's UK operations.

So, there's still some interest to be extracted from Aviva's succession plan. IT