mergers & acquisitions

The boards of Zurich and Beazley have now agreed terms of the approximately £8.1 billion all-cash offer by Zurich for Beazley’s shares, while we understand that as the transaction proceeds it is business as usual for Beazley’s Bermuda cyber insurance-linked securities (ILS) plans.

After Beazley rejected Zurich’s acquisition proposals last month and in 2025, the pair have now reached an agreement in principle on the key financial terms of a possible recommended cash offer, with Zurich lifting the offer to a total value of up to 1,335 pence per Beazley share.

Beazley has announced this morning that its board has rejected the acquisition proposal from Zurich Insurance Group, saying that the offer “materially undervalues Beazley and its longer-term prospects as an independent company.”

Yesterday the news broke that global giant Zurich Insurance Group has made a number of proposals to acquire London headquartered specialty insurance and reinsurance company Beazley and it’s worth considering what this could mean for cyber, ILS and the use of third-party capital by these firms.

With the announcement today that insurance and reinsurance specialist Vantage Group is set to be acquired by Howard Hughes Holdings, the firm’s third-party collateralized reinsurance capital business AdVantage received a positive mention from the acquirer’s executives during an analyst call.

Vantage Group Holdings Ltd., the specialty insurance and reinsurance group with a collateralized underwriting arm under the AdVantage strategy, has announced it is to be acquired by the Bill Ackman linked Howard Hughes Holdings, while his hedge fund Pershing Square will manage Vantage’s investment assets going forwards.

Artemis can reveal that specialist ILS manager Twelve Securis is the seller of a seasoned portfolio of life insurance-linked securities (ILS) that Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. (HSCM) is acquiring through the launch of a new fund, with this deal demonstrating the increasing sophistication of market players and growing maturity of the ILS sector.

Speaking last week after the announcement of Sompo’s plan to acquire Aspen Insurance, executives from the Sompo side explained that the integration will expand the opportunity set for Aspen Capital Markets investors, while the business intends to continue pursuing a capital light model leveraging third-party capital.

Sompo Holdings, Inc. has announced that it will acquire insurance and reinsurance group Aspen Insurance Holdings in a deal valued at $3.5 billion, while it cites access to alternative capital through the Aspen Capital Markets unit as a key benefit and a “highly differentiated product offering.”

Lewis & Ellis, Inc. (L&E), a national actuarial consulting firm, has acquired Huggins Actuarial Services, Inc. (Huggins), a provider of property & casualty (P&C) actuarial services, in a move that enhances L&E’s position in traditional P&C markets while accelerating its capabilities in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) space.