Paneuropean private equity firm Cinven entered exclusive talks with Anglo South African insurance group Old Mutual to buy its Italian subsidiary Old Mutual Wealth Italy, former Skandia Italia, MF Milano Finanza writes today. The newspaper also says that binding bids were expected by last july 27th and that Cinven’s bid was preferred over a bid from private equity competitor JC Flowers.
The auction for the Old Mutual Wealth Italy (managed by Rotschild) started last April (see here a previous post by BeBeez) as part of a wider plan to break up the Anglo-South African insurance group, cut costs and revamp earnings. The Italian division Old Mutual Wealth Italy was initially said to be valued about 300 million euros, but price was then reduces and Cinven is said to have bid somehting between 200 and 250 million euros. In Italy Old Mutual Wealth had reached a very good position, above all in the unit linked policies with the Skandia brand and counts reserves for about 6 billion euros.
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) while it has just sold sold Italy’s damage insurance company Ergo Assicurazioni to Darag, a German insurance company focused on run-off insurance portfolios (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Cinven had bought both Ergo Assicurazioni (195 million euros in reserves and about 350k insurance policies under anagement) and life insurance company Ergo Previdenza from Munich Re last November.
