Netherlands-based Exin Financial Services has agreed to acquire 75% stake in Greek insurer Ethniki Hellenic General Insurance (Ethniki Insurance) from the National Bank of Greece (NBG) for €718m.
The transaction is expected to result in a long-term partnership between Exin and NBG with the latter to retain a 25% stake in the general insurance company.
Through it, the enterprise value of Ethniki Insurance has gone up to €958m.
Ethniki Insurance will continue to be the exclusive bancassurance provider of NBG. In this regard, a 10-year partnership deal has been forged by the parties to cover life, savings and non-life insurance products.
For NBG, the sale of the majority stake in its insurance arm is part of a restructuring plan, allowing it to focus on its core business.
NBG CEO Leonidas Fragkiadakis said: “After 125 years of common history dating back to 1891, NBG divests 75% of its interest in Ethniki Insurance to deliver on its commitment to its shareholders and the European Authorities.
“At the same time, it entered into an exclusive bancassurance agreement to govern the distribution of the products of Ethniki Insurance via the NBG network. The decision to retain a 25% stake is in line with the spirit of partnership that will govern our relationship with EXIN going forward.”
Exin, which bought a 50% stake in AIG Greece in December 2016, expects its consolidated insurance portfolio in Greece to make annual revenue of about €1bn in premiums.
Both Exin and NBG share a common goal to develop Ethniki Insurance. This will be through significant upgrade of core systems and processes to provide better service to customers, in particular to brokers, agent partners, and policyholders.
Ethniki Insurance is expected to be helped by Exin’s distribution, technical, underwriting and digital expertise. The Dutch company would also be contributing its proprietary application and algorithm-based predictive behaviour technology dubbed as Intelligent Data to the insurance company.
Exin co-founder and CEO Matt Fairfield said: “We are excited at the opportunity to work with our Ethniki Insurance colleagues to further grow the excellent foundation our partners at NBG have so ably built. Marrying the timeless values of Ethniki Insurance to our technological expertise will help deliver an exceptional customer experience for years to come.”
The closing of the transaction would depend on the approval from the Bank of Greece and Competition Authorities.
Image: National Bank of Greece to divest majority stake in Ethniki Insurance to Exin. Photo: courtesy of stockimages/Freedigitalphotos.net.