Major consolidation does not solve industry issues, says Zurich boss Mario Greco
Zurich will almost certainly shun any major mergers after boss Mario Greco said he only wanted targeted deals.
There has been a slew of M&A deals in the last 12 months, the biggest being between AXA and XL.
But Greco said major deals don’t solve the issues facing insurers.
“Mergers and M&A activity is not really a priority for us.
”We are doing some targeted, focused M&A transactions and we will continue doing that but all we do is in-country transactions where we can strengthen our strengths in each given country as we did in Australia, as we did in Argentina, as we did in the U.S. a year ago.
”We will stick to that and we will maintain our discipline and our focus on that,” he told Bloomberg TV.
Zurich had been close to sealing a major tranformational deal for RSA in 2015, but pulled out at the eleventh hour.
Asked whether the European insurance sector needed consolidation, he said: “I don’t think so because we are in the middle of a fundamental industry transformation where consolidation doesn’t solve the issues, doesn’t make it easier for any of us to confront the issues of the transformation.”
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