Legal & General Group has entered into exclusive negotiations after receiving a binding offer from APICIL Prévoyance to acquire L&G France.
L&G France is headquartered in Paris, with 19 agency branches situated across France. It was established in 1934, and Oliver Potellet has been president and CEO since 2010. It is a specialist player in unit-linked savings and group risk, with an established presence in the affluent savings market and the group health and protection market for SMEs.
It has a client base of circa 37,000 individual savings customers, circa 4,000 group risk SME customers, and it wrote premiums in 2014 of €371.8m in savings and €214.9m in group risk.
Mark Gregory (pictured), group chief financial officer at Legal & General, said: “We have an increasingly focused strategy and our French business is no longer a core operation for us. Legal & General France has strong potential: which can be realised by combining it with APICIL’s established strengths in the French market.”
Philippe Barret, managing director of APICIL Group, said: “Once the transaction is confirmed, we will be pleased to welcome L&G France, its successful teams and business partners within the APICIL Group.
“This acquisition will definitely accelerate APICIL’s growth in its two strategic markets: Life Insurance and Medical, death and disability Insurance. The acquisition will nicely complement our recent acquisition of Skandia (France/ Luxembourg) and our existing businesses,”
Potellet added: “Legal & General has been a great owner, and helped us become a key player in the French insurance market. I’m excited about our next phase of development, and look forward to achieving it in partnership with APICIL.”