mergers & acquisitions

The growing volume of alternative reinsurance capital which has entered the insurance and reinsurance sector in recent years is seen as a resource for the industry, rather than a competitor, by CEO of AXIS Capital Albert Benchimol.

Rating agency Standard & Poor’s gave an update on how it views global reinsurance sector trends at an event in London recently, highlighting the continued growth of capital, ongoing price pressure and saying that M&A won’t reverse these trends.

By agreeing to evaluate the terms of the amalgamation deal and pushing the shareholder votes further back, reinsurance firms PartnerRe and AXIS Capital are acknowledging that their transaction is inferior, according to EXOR.

As expected reinsurance firm PartnerRe and insurer and reinsurer AXIS Capital are now evaluating their options with respect to how they could enhance or improve their amalgamation agreement for the shareholders benefit.

Analysts at Macquarie believe that as Italian investment company EXOR continues to pursue PartnerRe with an enhanced offer, giving it a growing chance of winning the reinsurance firm in investors eyes, AXIS Capital becomes more vulnerable to another buyers offer.

Activist investor Sandell Asset Management has again come forwards to criticise the board of reinsurance firm PartnerRe, saying that it believes the board has been deliberately keeping the firms shareholders uninformed.

While the insurance and reinsurance market is engrossed in a search for relevance, scale and diversity of underwriting platform, the resulting M&A activity may present an “upside risk” which could bolster P&C re/insurance shares, despite the clear headwinds, according to Goldman Sachs.

Analysts in the insurance and reinsurance space gave EXOR’s improved offer for the shares of reinsurance firm PartnerRe the thumbs up, with some going so far as to suggest that AXIS Capital needs to at least match it, if its merger deal is to survive.

In a move which has been anticipated Italian investment holding company EXOR S.p.A. says it is enhancing the terms of its binding offer for reinsurance firm PartnerRe, in order to make the deal even more attractive to PartnerRe Common and Preferred Shareholders.

In a move that will have significant ramifications for the global reinsurance market re/insurer ACE Group has announced that it is to acquire competitor Chubb Group to create the world’s largest property and casualty firm.