Sompo Holdings, a subsidiary of Sompo International Holdings, said it has an agreement in place to acquire Aspen Insurance Holdings for about $3.5 billion to further its geographical reach outside of its home territory.
Tokyo-based Sompo early this year announced the restructuring of its business into two segments—one being Sompo P&C, with James Shea appointed chief executive officer.
“To accelerate capital circulation management and collaboration across the Sompo Group, we established Sompo P&C and appointed James Shea as its CEO. This transaction is an excellent example of those initiatives in action,” said Sompo Group CEO Mikio Okumura, in a statement.
With Aspen, Sompo gets a specialty and reinsurance franchise with over $4.6 billion in annual gross written premiums in lines of business such as cyber, credit and political risk, inland marine, U.K. property and construction, and U.S. management liability.
“Strategic acquisitions have been a key part of our growth plan to build a robust and diversified global P/C platform, and Aspen represents an excellent opportunity at the right time in the market cycle,” said Shea. “We look forward to welcoming the team from Aspen as we bring our organizations together, recognizing that the property/casualty market continues to value platforms that can underwrite and manage capital and risk at scale—and with exceptional skill.”
Sompo also gains Aspen experience in global casualty, property, property catastrophe, and specialty reinsurance lines. Aspen Lloyd’s syndicate provides access to complex risks and reinsurance licensing across markets untapped by Sompo in the the Americas, U.K., Europe, and Asia Pacific.
Sompo said it will look to integrate Aspen’s business with its overseas insurance business to pursue further expansion opportunities together across developed markets.
The purchase price represents a value for Aspen shares of $37.50, which is a 35.6% premium to the share price of $27.66 on August 19, which was the last day before talk of the transaction, according to Sompo.
Aspen Group CEO and Executive Chairman Mark Cloutier said the transaction “represents an excellent outcome for Aspen and our shareholders…Sompo’s scale and capital strength will create significant opportunities for our customers, trading partners and colleagues.”
“We look forward to sharing more details as we work towards completion, while maintaining our focus on continuing to deliver great service and products for our customers,” he added.
To learn more please follow us on LinkedIn or visit Sompo-hd.com.
About Aspen
Aspen provides insurance and reinsurance coverage to clients in various domestic and global markets through wholly-owned operating subsidiaries in Bermuda, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as its branch operations in Canada, Singapore and Switzerland. For more information about Aspen, please visit www.aspen.co
Topics
Mergers & Acquisitions
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