Equitable Life appoints BlackRock to manage funds

LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) - British life insurer Equitable Life said on Sunday it had appointed U.S. investment house BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) to provide investment and risk management services for its 400,000 policyholders.

Customer-owned Equitable Life said BlackRock's objective would be to maximise returns on 5.7 billion pounds ($8.6 billion) of assets while satisfying Equitable Life's regulatory solvency ratios.

Equitable Life closed its doors to new customers nine years ago after the cost of paying guaranteed bonuses to some policyholders left it short of cash.

Last November it appointed pensions firm HCL to administer its policies in a move it said would cut future costs by more than 100 million pounds. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham, editing by Will Waterman) ($1=.6598 Pound)