RESO-Garantia chairman of the board Sergey Sarkisov
Photo: Pavel Smertin
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
French Buy into Russian Insurance Co.
AXA, France's largest insurer, has acquired a 36.7-percent stake in RESO-Garantia for €810 million. The French will buy the remaining shares in it by 2011. RESO-Garantia is the most expensive acquisition ever made by a foreign company in the Russian insurance industry. The number of Russian-owned insurance companies is quickly dwindling.
Under the terms of the agreement, two joint ventures will be set up by 2011, one for life insurance and the other for other types of insurance. AXA will have a 50-percent share in the former and 36.8 percent in the latter. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development sold about a 3.7-percent stake in the company, thus retaining about 6 percent of it. AXA is to open a $1-billion credit line to use for the development of the RESO Group in the next six years. There are more than 20 companies in the RESO, in addition to the insurance company, that are engaged in leasing and development. The MedSwiss clinics are also part of the group.
RESO-Garantia is the third-ranked Russian insurance company by premiums (24.7 billion rubles). Shareholders in the company include brothers Sergey and Nikolay Sarkisov (85 percent) and president of RESO Group Andrey Savelyev (3.9 percent). The EBRD bought 10 percent in RESO Garantia for $150 million in May.
AXA Group was founded in 1985. Its capitalization is €80 billion. It is active in 47 countries and has 52 million clients and 400,000 shareholders. Its income in 2006 was €79 billion and gross profit €5.14 billion. AXA also owns 0.26 percent of the Rossia insurance company in Russia. Rossia signed an agreement with AXA at the end of last year under which it represents the French company in Russia and the CIS.
Dresdner Kleinwort assessed RESO-Garantia at $1.7-2.4 billion and Deutsche Bank assessed it at $2-2.4 billion for its abortive IPO. Judging by the payment for the first stock package, the French have put a price tag of $3.15 billion on it. The Russian insurance market is growing rapidly. Companies collected 602.1 billion rubles in premiums in 2006, up 22.7 percent from the previous year.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 24, 2007
|
|
|
