Toronto-based Fairfax bought 80% of Greece’s third largest insurer Eurolife that sells insurance products through Eurobank, where Fairfax holds a stake. It is the second acquisition announcement today, after Qatar National Bank announced it acquired Turkish Finanzbank from the National Bank of Greece.
“After riding out the Greek banking crisis earlier this year with Eurobank Ergasias SA, Fairfax Financial Holdings is deepening its stake in Greece by buying the bank’s insurance unit.
On Tuesday, Fairfax announced it will pay 316 million euros ($481.6 million Cdn) for an 80 per cent majority stake in Eurolife ERB Insurance Group Holdings SA.
Eurolife distributes its insurance products and services through branches of Eurobank Ergasias, the Greek bank where Fairfax purchased at 13.6 per cent stake in 2014.
It is the third largest insurer in Greece with gross written premiums of 241 million euros as of Sept. 30, 2015. It sells life and non-life insurance products as well as brokerage services in Greece and Romania.
Eurolife will continue to be led by its current CEO Alexander Sarrigeorgiou.
Fairfax was reported to be among the foreign buyers who took advantage of very low bank stock prices earlier this year to boost its ownership of Greek banks.
Fairfax is a Toronto-based holding company which, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance and investment management. (full article CBCNews)
PS no comment – we all know that everything will be sold
