Achmea in talks with NN Group, Athora to sell life insurance business, sources say

NN

15/02/2024 14:10

By Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro, Amy-Jo Crowley and Andres Gonzalez
       LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Dutch insurer Achmea has held
early stage discussions about a potential sale of its life
insurance operations, including with rivals NN Group  NN.AS  and
Apollo Global Management-backed Athora, four people familiar
with the matter told Reuters.
    Achmea, an insurance cooperative backed by Rabobank, said
this week it was "exploring internal and external options" for
its Pension & Life Insurance arm. The business could be worth
more than 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) in a transaction, a
fifth source added.
    Achmea is working with bankers at JPMorgan  JPM.N  to gauge
interest in the business, which manages more than 40 billion
euros in assets largely from legacy insurance policies that are
no longer sold to new customers, the four people said, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
    Discussions are still at an early stage, and there is no
certainty that a transaction will materialise, the sources also
said.
    Achmea, Athora, JPMorgan and NN Group declined to comment.
    The plans come as European insurance groups carve out
non-core operations and legacy insurance portfolios in a bid to
free up capital held to support these insurance policies so they
can invest the money elsewhere.
    Swiss insurer Baloise announced a deal this month to offload
part of its life insurance business in Belgium, confirming an
earlier Reuters report.
    Besides NN Group and Athora, Achmea is also sounding out
alternative asset managers with existing insurance platforms
such as Canada's Brookfield  BN.TO , two of the people said.
    Brookfield declined to comment.
    NN Group and Athora are seen as having a competitive
advantage over other prospective bidders as they already operate
in the Netherlands, one of the four sources said.
    Achmea is considering different deal structures, such as an
outright sale or a joint venture with a partner, another of the
sources said.
    For NN Group, whose roots go back nearly two centuries, a
deal with Achmea's life arm would be one of its biggest
acquisitions in recent years.
    In 2022, the Amsterdam-listed group acquired the life
insurance activities of ABN AMRO Verzekeringen. 
    NN Group and Athora previously teamed up to acquire Dutch
insurer VIVAT in 2020, with NN Group taking the target's
non-life operations and Athora the life insurance business.
    Athora is an example of the growing number of insurance
companies backed by alternative asset managers which see in life
insurance a source of long-term capital to invest.
    The flow of private capital into the sector has raised the
attention of regulators and bodies like the International
Monetary Fund.
    The heightened scrutiny of the sector comes in the wake of
the collapse of Italian insurer Eurovita, which Cinven had
acquired in 2017.
    
($1 = 0.9314 euros)

 (Reporting by Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro, Amy-Jo Crowley and Andres
Gonzalez in London; Additional reporting by Bart H. Meijer in
Amsterdam; Editing by Anousha Sakoui and Jane Merriman)
 ((pablo.mayocerqueiro@thomsonreuters.com))