Vienna Insurance buys BCR Asigurari de Viata and BCR Asigurari

Erste sold its insurance operations, including those on the Romanian market, to Vienna Insurance (VIG), for 1.44 billion euro, the Austrian group announced on Wednesday night. In Romania, Vienna Insurance will take over as majority shareholder the life insurance company BCR Asigurari de Viata and the general insurance company BCR Asigurari, both previously owned by the Romanian Commercial Bank (BCR). The transaction will reach its final shape in the third quarter of 2008. VIG is the most important investor on the Romanian insurance market, currently owning Omniasig, Omniasig Life, Agras, Unita and Asirom.

Through this deal, VIG will take over seven insurance companies that brought Erste payments of 1.3 billion euro in 2007. One of the companies is Sparkassen Versicherung, the second largest insurance company in Austria. In all European subsidiaries that it sold, Erste kept 5% of the shares.

Besides the sale of insurance operations, the groups also signed a distribution partnership for the following 15 years, mutually distributing their products and services.

In 2007, Vienna Insurance controlled some 27% of the Romanian insurance market.

In November 2007, VIG bought 20.2% of Asirom (ASRA) from Interagro, thus increasing its participation to 50.2%. VIG also controlled the majority stock at Omniasig (97.78%), Omniasig Life (50%), Agras (75.7%) and Unita (99.99).