Paneuropean private equity fund Cinven will acquire Ergo Italia, a subsidiary of the German insurance group Ergo (part of Munich Re Group). The deal was announced yesterday (see here the press release by Ergo and the press release by Cinven), confirming an anticipation by MF Milano FInanza last November 5th (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Ergo Italia, headquartered in Milan, operates both life and non-life insurance products through its life company Ergo Previdenza and its non-life company Ergo Assicurazioni respectively. The insurance group distributes its savings and personal line products through a network of 160 agencies and approx. 2,000 distributors across Italy. Ergo Previdenza manages approx. 600,000 life policies (mainly traditional products) with 5,1 billion euros of gross reserves and a net income of 38 millions. Ergo Assicurazioni manages more than 350,000 policies and approx. 195 million euros of gross reserves. Founded in 1986, the Ergo Italia group employs approx. 280 people.
Eugenio Preve, a Principal at Cinven, said: “We are excited to be acquiring Ergo Italia to support its growth in the Italian insurance market. This investment is the result of Cinven’s ongoing focus on the Italian market and will allow us to benefit from the experience accumulated in other insurance investments in Europe by pursuing further add-on acquisitions in the coming years.”
Cinven’s last investment in Italy was the one in Avio Group back in 2006. Cinven has a solid experience in the insurance sector as it owns Heidelberger Leben in Germany and just sold Guardian Financial Service in UK a few months ago. The private equity firm is studying some add-on dossier already to its new Italian insurance platform, MF Milano Finanza writes today.
Advisors on the transaction advising Cinven were Rothschild (financial), Freshfields (legal), PwC (accounting), Bain (commercial), Kpmg and Deloitte (tax). While advisor to Ergo was Leonardo & Co.
