Aviva is selling one of its Italian entities, having previously announced the sale of its Indonesia and Singapore businesses
Aviva continues to follow through with its strategy of selling off its less profitable foreign businesses as it today announced the sale of its 80% share in Italian life insurer Aviva Vita for €400m (£350m).
In August, the then new chief executive Amanda Blanc unveiled the insurer’s plans to refocus the business on becoming a ‘UK champion’, in which she also hinted at the sale of more foreign businesses.
The news comes days after Aviva announced it had completed the sale of its Indonesian business PT Astra Aviva Life to PT Sedaya Multi Investama, first announced in March.
It has also announced the sale of its Singapore Life business for £1.6bn.
The sale of Aviva Vita - a joint venture with UBI Banca - would leave Aviva with three remaining Italian businesses: Aviva SpA, a 51%-owned life insurance joint venture with UniCredit; Aviva Life SpA, a 100% owned life insurance entity, and Aviva Italia SpA, a 100%-owned general insurance business.
In a statement, Aviva said it ”continues to evaluate how it manages these businesses to maximise shareholder value”.
Commenting on the latest deal, Blanc said: “Our strategy is about focus and delivery.
”The sale of Aviva Vita is another important step forward as we reshape our portfolio and follows the recent announcement of the majority sale of our Singaporean business.
”We will continue to be decisive as we seek to transform Aviva for the benefit of our shareholders.”
Aviva said the sale of Aviva Vita would increase its net asset value by £0.12bn as of June 2020, as well as strengthening its Solvency II coverage ratio.
”The proceeds will be used to further strengthen Aviva’s central liquidity and will be considered as part of Aviva’s broader capital management and debt reduction objectives,” it added.
Oxbow Partners market analyst Paul De’Ath told Insurance Times that the latest deal ”feels like Aviva delivering on the strategy Amanda Blanc set out to focus the group and sell off the areas that are not core to the future vision.
”Along with the recent Singapore sale, the group is already slimmer than it was but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were further deals to come.”
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