The flotation, one of the biggest in recent years, will value the company at more than 7bn, considerably more than Irish Life & Permanent, which is worth less than 5bn. But is it a good investment?

For 94,000 people, the answer is an unqualified yes because they will not have to dip their hands in their pockets to get a piece of the action. They are the holders of with-profits policies, entitling them to at least 185 free shares. The shares will be priced between 210p and 270p and, according to Standard Life's calculations, the average handout will be worth between 664 and 1,319.

All 130,000 customers, however, can buy shares at a discount, including those who missed out on the free shares because they have the wrong type of policy, such as a unit-linked investment or pension or life assurance policy. The minimum application is 1,520 and there is no upper limit.

You will not know how many shares you will get until the price is fixed and, assuming that investor interest stays strong, you are unlikely to get everything you ask for, especially if you intend to invest a lot.

The discount works out at 5% off the launch price and customers can buy up to £50,000 ( 72,500) of discounted shares. You will also get one free share for every 20 discounted shares still held 12 months after flotation, giving an effective discount of 10% for people who hold on for at least a year.

With stock markets lurching all over the place in recent weeks, Standard Life has hardly picked an ideal time to float.

Customers have already seen 10% chopped off the value of their demutualisation windfalls as Standard Life was forced to scale back the likely launch price. A further 10% drop in the share price would wipe out any benefit of being able to buy the shares at a discount.

The company's determination to press ahead with the flotation against such a gloomy backdrop is surely a sign that it is running out of options. It is quite a comedown for an organisation often accused or arrogance in the past, especially over the decision by its investment managers to stick with equities even as stock markets went into freefall in 2000.

In Ireland, the company has been pushed to the sidelines with a puny 4% share of the market by the unstoppable march of Irish Life and Bank of Ireland, which now account for half of all life and pensions sales.

Business also suffered as Standard Life went through a painful reorganisation that resulted in the axing of most provincial offices.

The new chief executive in Dublin, Michael Leahy, is attempting to halt the rot with a string of new products including a bid to grab more of booming demand for selfadministered personal pensions. But it will be an uphill struggle.

The troubles in Ireland are mirrored elsewhere and some stockbrokers believe that Standard Life's bigger rivals, such as Prudential and Aviva, which owns Hibernian in Ireland, could be a better bet for investors because of their greater global reach. Even a minnow like IL&P could be a safer alternative because its insurance business is balanced by a booming mortgage book, although its exclusive focus on Ireland will turn off investors who want to spread their risk a bit wider.

On a plus side, Standard Life is seen by some as a sitting duck that will be taken over sooner or later by one of the insurance behemoths. If this happens, investors who get in at the beginning at a discount can be sure of making a tidy profit. In the meantime they can look forward to a generous 4.5% dividend yield on the shares.

According to Brendan Burgess, founder of Askaboutmoney. com, anyone with a respectable share portfolio should probably scoop up as many discounted shares as they can get their hands on.

Because applications are likely to be scaled down, he suggests applying for the maximum 72,500 of discounted shares in the knowledge that you will not get what you asked for.

Should you end up with more than you want, you can always sell off shares that are surplus to your requirements.

Anybody lucky enough to get free shares should definitely hold on to them.

If they qualify for the discount, they should buy some more. But don't get carried away because, even at a discount, you can have too much of a good thing.