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A European insurance coverage group backed by Apollo World Administration is nearing a £6bn takeover of UK retirement financial savings group Pension Insurance Corporation, a deal that might additional push the US various property big into the UK insurance coverage market.
Athora, a European-based insurer minority owned by Apollo, is near buying full possession of PIC from a consortium of buyers, together with CVC Capital and Reinet Investments, a automobile backed by South African billionaire Johann Rupert, in keeping with three folks briefed on the matter. A deal might be introduced as quickly as this week.
The acquisition would push Athora, which operates in nations together with Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, into the UK, the most important retirement market in Europe.
It could come as US personal capital giants equivalent to Apollo, Brookfield Asset Administration, KKR and Carlyle have both begun working within the UK retirement market or studied acquisitions in recent times.
PIC declined to remark. Apollo and CVC didn’t instantly reply. Sky Information first reported that PIC was nearing a sale.
PIC, which manages about £50bn in property and has almost 400,000 policyholders within the UK, would roughly double Athora’s measurement, in keeping with firm filings. It could additionally put PIC beneath the complete possession of Athora, a fast-growing, pan-European insurer that’s backed by Apollo.
Apollo acts as a what known as a “subadviser” managing a few of Athora’s property, which means it might have a hand in managing the property of PIC’s clients.
The sale of PIC could be a big windfall for its homeowners, who additionally embody Abu Dhabi Funding Authority and US credit score investor HPS Funding Administration. HPS earlier this week accomplished its $12bn sale to BlackRock.
PIC’s worth has roughly tripled since CVC first invested in 2017. Reinet, a Luxembourg-based funding automobile, first invested in PIC in 2012, shopping for a 43 per cent stake for £400mn and rising its funding over time.
PIC has expanded rapidly beneath Reinet and CVC’s possession by taking on company pension fund liabilities, and the property that again them. In 2023, it acquired £6.5bn of liabilities from basic insurer RSA, then the most important UK deal of its sort.
Athora had studied an acquisition of PIC for years, and the insurer had beforehand drawn curiosity from different US personal capital giants, together with Carlyle and KKR, the Monetary Occasions beforehand reported.
Lately, Apollo has been an energetic investor within the UK, shopping for corporations together with Restaurant Group, the proprietor of the Wagamama meals chain. Final month it dedicated to lend £4.5bn to fund the event of a nuclear energy station in Somerset, England.
In 2022, a distinct Apollo insurance coverage subsidiary, Athene, bought greater than $1bn of property from UK pension funds throughout a disaster triggered by the UK’s disastrous “mini” Price range.
