Achmea to form life insurance joint venture with Sixth Street

ASR Nederland NV

28/11/2024 08:25

AMSTERDAM, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Dutch insurer Achmea said
on Thursday it had reached a deal with investment firm Sixth
Street to form a new life insurance joint venture, aiming to
profit from the overhaul of the Netherlands' large pension
system.
    Sixth Street will merge its insurer Lifetri with Achmea's
life insurance and pensions portfolio and will pay Achmea 445
million euros ($469 million) in return for a 20% stake in the
new company, Achmea said.
    Achmea will get the remaining 80% of the shares in the joint
venture, which will remain part of the Achmea group, the Dutch
insurer said.
    The new venture will aim to play a big part in the
consolidation of the Dutch pension sector, as a result of the
overhaul of the country's 1.7 trillion euros private pension
industry, Europe's largest.
    Achmea said it expects a total of 20 to 30 billion euros in
funds will be available for buy-outs by insurers in the coming
years, as pension funds grapple with the costs of the overhaul.
    The new joint venture expects to be able to take up to 20%
of those funds, the insurer said.
    The joint venture will have around 2.1 million customers,
with around 500,000 from Lifetri, and would be in the "top
three" of life insurance companies in the Netherlands, Achmea
said.
    Its main rivals are insurer ASR  ASRNL.AS  and Apollo Global
Management-backed Athora.
    Achmea, an insurance cooperative backed by Dutch lender
Rabobank, had said in February it was exploring options for its
Pension & Life Insurance arm. 
    At the time, sources said the company had held early stage
discussions about a potential sale of the operations, including
with rivals NN Group and Athora. 
    ($1 = 0.9489 euros)

 (Reporting by Bart Meijer
Editing by Mark Potter)
 ((Bart.Meijer@thomsonreuters.com;))