The sale of Asiban insurer, seen as one of last year’s top deals, brought major players on the global market into the spotlight. The company was owned by four lenders - Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), Banca Romana de Dezvoltare -Groupe Societe Generale (BRD-SocGen), Banca Transilvania (BT), and the state-owned Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni (CEC).
Eight insurance giants were interested in Asiban, namely the French Axa and Groupama groups, the Austrian Uniqa group, Dutch insurers Eureko and Aegon, Italy-based Fondiaria and Generali, and German group Munich Re. Market sources were estimating the deal at €250-300 million.
In April, Groupama closed the deal with the four lenders, for €350 million. Earlier this year, the group had taken over the insurance segment of Hungarian OTP lender, including the OTP Garancia branch in Romania, for which it paid some €3 million.
In March, Austrian Erste group sold its BCR Asigurari and BCR Asigurari de Viata insurance divisions locally to Austrian Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) for €244 million. Thus, VIG reached a 37 percent of the local insurance market. It later sold insurer Unita for an estimated €200 million.
