The dossier for the Amissima insurance group, an Apollo Global Management‘s portfolio company since 2014, is back hot. According to MF Milano Finanza, Cinven is in fact preparing an offer for Amissima Vita, (formerly Carige Vita Nuova, with 900 million insurance premiums in 2019), while HDI (Talanx Group) aims to acquire the non-life business Amissima Assicurazioni (formerly Carige Assicurazioni, with 290 million premiums in 2019).
The auction should have started at the end of February 2020 (see here a previous article by BeBeez), but it had been frozen due to the coronavirus and the m&a machine restarted just last June, with informal contacts with potential investors (see here a previous article by BeBeez), managed by the advisors Equita and Kpmg. Now the official start of the auction is expected by the end of the month or at the latest by the beginning of October. As for Apollo, it is not excluded that the fund decides to remain a shareholder of the companies with a minority stake.
Apollo had taken over Carige Assicurazioni and Carige Vita Nuova in 2014 for 310 million euros (see here a previous article by BeBeez). In March 2016, the US fund, through Amissima Holdings spa, had then carried out a 52 million euros capital increase in the insurance group (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
Amissima still boasts a distribution agreement with Carige, which will expire in 2038 and has closed the banking group a long legal dispute. Today the bank intercepts only 10% of the non-life collection and half of that life because in addition to the network of about 500 multi-firm agents, the companies have also formed distribution agreements with other partners. At the beginning of 2020, the loan granted by Carige to Amissima Holding to guarantee the non-life reserves, which also involved a pledge on the shares of the two companies, was repaid. Thus the fund freed its hands to dispose of the companies.
The ceo of the Amissima group, Alessandro Santoliquido, who in the past also worked on the reorganization of Sara Assicurazioni, reported the operating result of Amissima Assicurazioni in balance, restoring the situation prior to 2015, however, the company needs an industrial partner to achieve synergies on volumes and for this reason it is expected that the offers will come from strategic subjects, with HDI in pole position. Amissima Vita, on the other hand, is more a private equity fund target and Cinven has proven to be particularly active on the Italian market, with the experience in building the Eurovita group starting in 2016 with the acquisition and integration of Ergo Previdenza, Old Mutual Wealth Italy and Eurovita Assicurazioni (see here a previous article by BeBeez) to which Pramerica Life was then added in August 2019 (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
We recall that in July 2019 Amissima Vita sold a hotel in Provaglio d’Iseo (Brescia), in Franciacorta, to Ark Investment Advisors PTE, on its first investment in Italy (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
In the insurance sector, Apollo in Italy also holds 20% of the insurance company Bene Assicurazioni, following the acquisition of Aspen Insurance Holding for 2.6 billion dollars in August 2018 (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
