US insurer Brighthouse is in talks for sale to Sixth Street, sources say

Brighthouse Financial

16/10/2025 18:47

Adds share price reaction in paragraph 4, further detail on negotiations in paragraphs 7-9

Sixth Street is in talks to buy Brighthouse for roughly $55/share

Brighthouse held negotiations with Aquarian, but efforts fizzled

Sixth Street deal would value Brighthouse at around $3.1 billion, end long-running saga over insurer's future

By David French

NEW YORK, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Brighthouse Financial BHF.O is in talks to be bought by money manager Sixth Street after negotiations with Aquarian Holdings cooled last month, three people familiar with the matter said.

Deal negotiations with Sixth Street and its insurance affiliate, Talcott, were revived in recent days after Brighthouse spent weeks in exclusive talks with Aquarian. The Brighthouse board ultimately did not like the funding proposal with Aquarian's final bid, the sources said. Aquarian, an insurance and asset management-focused investment firm, is backed by Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala and RedBird Capital Partners.

Sixth Street's offer for Brighthouse is worth roughly $55 per share, two of the sources added, which would value Brighthouse at around $3.14 billion. While that would be a discount to the Aquarian proposal of nearly $70 per share, which Reuters reported last month, the price would be a roughly 14% premium to Brighthouse's closing share price on Wednesday.

Brighthouse shares initially reversed losses to trade more than 2% higher on the Reuters story, before trading 1.9% lower at $47.32 at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT).

The sources cautioned that no deal between Sixth Street and Brighthouse was guaranteed, and the talks could end without an agreement. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations.

Sixth Street, Brighthouse, and Talcott declined to comment. Aquarian did not respond to a comment request.

BRIGHTHOUSE PIVOTS TO SIXTH STREET

Should a deal be struck with Sixth Street, it would end a long-running saga over the fate of Brighthouse, a provider of life insurance and annuity products.

Sixth Street had shown interest in Brighthouse earlier this year as the insurer explored its strategic options, including a sale of the company, before dropping out of the running before bids were due in the summer. Aquarian emerged as the preferred bidder from that process, but talks reached an impasse in late September, which people familiar with the talks said was due to Brighthouse's board having reservations about Aquarian's ability to fund its offer.

Brighthouse then approached Sixth Street to see whether it was still interested in a deal, at which point Sixth Street made a new offer, two of the sources added.

U.S. life insurance and annuity providers in recent years have been attracting takeover interest from private equity firms and other asset managers that can take the underlying assets and deploy them into their various strategies. As well as earning higher returns on the insurance assets, the method helps turbocharge firms' other products.

(Reporting by David French in New York. Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Rod Nickel)

((davidj.french@tr.com))