Baloise Shopping for Insurers at Home and Abroad in Europe
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) — Martin Strobel, chief executive officer of Baloise Holding AG, said the insurance company may consider buying firms in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.
“If more opportunities arise in our core markets we will examine these,” Strobel said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. Baloise is interested in insurance companies that deal predominantly in general insurance, he said.
Baloise, Switzerland’s third-biggest insurer, strengthened its presence in Belgium in 2011, buying Nateus SA and Nateus Life SA for 217 million euros ($281 million) and Eureko Group’s Avero Schadeverzekering Benelux NV for 75 million euros. The company purchased Vivium Assurance in Luxembourg last year, while it has sold units in Austria, Serbia and Croatia.
“We are interested in bolt-on transactions and we like to buy for a reasonable price,” Strobel said, adding Baloise “profited during the financial crisis with our acquisitions in Belgium and Luxembourg, where the sellers were forced to sell.”
The company would consider insurers with premium volume of between 200 million Swiss francs ($214 million) and 300 million francs as these are easier to integrate into the group, he said.
Baloise Bank SoBa AG, a regional bank acquired in 2000, is part of the company’s core strategy and is not for sale, Strobel said. The smaller lender sells saving products and mortgages for residential property.
Baloise doesn’t plan any acquisition in the banking industry to expand Bank SoBa, he said in the Sept. 8 interview.
The insurer expects full-year operating income to swell as much as 100 million francs from the sale of its stake in Nationale Suisse and its Helvetia Holding AG shares. The company also expects as much as 70 million francs in the second half from the sale of its Austrian unit to Helvetia.
The insurer is examining “all options” on how to deal with this year’s “special situation,” according to Strobel.
“We don’t hoard money, and what we don’t use for growth we give back to investors,” Strobel said, adding the company generally pays a dividend in line with what it earns.
To contact the reporters on this story: Carolyn Bandel in Zurich at cbandel@bloomberg.net; Jan Schwalbe in Zurich at jschwalbe6@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Bentley at mbentley3@bloomberg.net Cindy Roberts, Jon Menon
