Chief executive Blair Vernon said the intention was to sell it as a complete business.

An update on the sale process is expected at or before it reports its first half results in six months time.

The company says in its full year results to December 31, that the "divestment process is underway with a mandate to maximise shareholder value. AMP is in discussions with a number of interested parties and expects to provide a further update at or before 1H 20 results."

Vernon said the past year has been focussed on separating out the life business which has been sold to Resolution Life and also bringing onshore IT functions.

He says this will help the business be more responsive as the company previously had difficulty getting things done when IT was based in Australia with the parent company.

AMP’s KiwiSaver business had been experiencing some difficulties, Vernon said there were a number of reasons including a focus on anchoring IT, fallout from the Royal Commission enquiry in Australia and competition.

He believes the company can turn around the outflows in it KiwiSaver.

Also during the past year AMP’s financial advisers were unshackled from the company and most of them joined the new Wealthpoint dealer group, established by the AMP’s adviser association.

While this group wrote a significant portion of business for AMP, they are now able to recommend more products from other providers.

Vernon does not expect this change to have a material impact on AMP. He says in the past AMP had to compete for business from these advisers as the company ran an open sourcing arrangement.