Swiss insurance group Helvetia has acquired a further 10% of the share capital of Caser for an undisclosed price, meaning it now owns 80% of the Spanish insurer.
At the same time, Caser has sold its stake in the life insurance company Sa Nostra Vida to Caixabank for $277.3 Million.
With these two transactions, Helvetia claims to have strengthened its position in Spain as well as the non-life business within the entire group.
The seller of the Caser stake is the Spanish bank Unicaja, which is reducing its holding of around 20% to about 10% after its merger with Liberbank, with the remaining 10% of the share capital owned by Ibercaja.
Caser will continue to work with both Unicaja and Ibercaja under the long-standing bancassurance cooperation agreements, which it says are not affected by these transactions and will remain unchanged. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.
“The acquisition of Caser is a success story,” said Philipp Gmür, Group CEO of Helvetia. “Caser made a profit contribution of CHF 72 million to the Group’s overall result last year.”
“Thanks to Caser’s service and commission business, we are successfully diversifying our business mix in line with our strategy,” he added. “The increase in our stake in Caser further boosts the importance of this business for Helvetia in turn.”
In addition, Caixabank is also taking over Helvetia Group’s share in the life insurance company Sa Nostra Vida, which Helvetia previously held through Caser.
Sa Nostra Vida contributed CHF 7.7 million to the Group’s annual result in 2021 and generated gross premiums of CHF 41.1 million, but Helvetia says the sale will reduce the weighting of the life business in the business volume of Helvetia Group as a whole and further strengthen its solvency.
For its part, Caixabank says the buy out will further bolster its insurance businesses after its takeover of smaller rival Bankia.
“Once this acquisition is carried out, the reorganization of the insurance businesses coming from Bankia will be completed,” Caixabank said in a statement.
