Finnish Sampo to buy Norwich Union units for zl. 925 mln

Finnish insurance group Sampo is to buy two Poland-based Norwich Union units: PTE Norwich Union (PTE NU) and life insurer Towarzystwo Ubezpieczen na Zycie (TUZ) from CGNU. Sampo will pay zl. 739 million for PTE NU and zl.186 million for TUZ. At present PTE NU with 475,000 customers ranks fifth on the Polish market and is ninth in terms of assets with a 3.1% market share. Other Polish pension funds were surprised at the the high price of the deal, considering only 305,000 of the 475,000 registered customers have paid their premiums at least once. "It is a very high valuation of the Polish pension fund market," said the head of the Pension Funds Chamber of Commerce (IGTE) Zygmunt Kostkiewicz. The transaction will be finalized by Nov. 31. Sampo runs a property insurance business in Poland and the deal will allow the company to enter the life insurance sector. TUZ has sold 12,000 insurance policies as of mid-August which places the company twelfth on Poland's life insurance market. (Rzeczpospolita, page A1, Parkiet, page 1)