Generali to take over Zurich group through merger

Two insurance companies and one pension fund owned by Zurich Financial will disappear from the national market next year, as they will be acquired by Ge nerali of Italy. "The shareholders decided that this process will take place through a merger, to be finalized when Generali acquires the shares of Polis h companies from the Zurich group," said Grzegorz Brenda, a member of Genera li's board in Poland. Another possible option was to transfer Zurich's insur ance portfolio to Generali and then liquidate Zurich's subsidiaries, but tha t possibility was rejected, as it was considered too burdensome for customer s. The Swiss group has almost 500,000 customers in Poland, of whom more than 400,000 are the members of its pension fund, while the remainder have life i nsurance policies. It is now possible that the pension fund will be merged w ith OFE Skarbiec-Emerytura owned by BRE Bank. This is because Generali holds a small stake in Commerzbank, which in turn is the main shareholder of BRE B ank. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B3) T.J.