Anglo South African group Old Mutual is preparing to sell its Italian wealth management unit as part of a wider plan to break up its business, cut costs and revamp earnings. The Italian division Old Mutual Wealth Italy is said to be valued about 300 million euros, Rotschild is the mandated advisorand the auction is expected to start by mid-May (see here Msn).
Old Mutual has a market value of close to 10 billion pounds and has roughly 320 billion pounds of assets under management globally of which Old Mutual Wealth Italy represents less than 5%, with about 6 billion euros of assets under management. Old Mutual has been present in Italy since 1997 in prodotti unit linked.where it is a specialist in unit linked products.
Expressions of interest already came from Cinven, Apollo and JC Flowers private equity firms which have been quite active in italy in the last few months in the financial sector (Cinven is now also bidding for an Italian portfolio of life insurance policies by Allianz group worth around 4.5 billion euros in a deal valued about 200 million euros). Also Swiss insurance Zurich Group is said to be working at the Old Mutual Weallth Italy dossier.
