Acquisition of Skandia Germany and Austria and new Group CEO

Cinven announced today that it completed the acquisition of Heidelberger Leben for a total consideration of €300 million. Heidelberger Leben will form the foundation for future consolidation of the German life insurance market.

On 27 March 2014, the Heidelberger Leben Group announced that it had reached agreement to acquire Skandia Germany and Skandia Austria for €220 million from Old Mutual plc. Skandia Germany and Austria represent the first acquisition as part of the consolidation strategy.

The combination of Heidelberger Leben and Skandia Germany and Austria (‘the Group’) will create a strong basis for further consolidation with approximately €10 billion assets under management (as at Dec 2013) and approximately one million policies. The Group will invest substantially in its IT systems and operating platform to lower administration costs and further improve customer service levels for policyholders in Germany and Austria.

In addition, Dr. Heinz-Peter Ross will join Heidelberger Leben as Group CEO on 1 July 2014.  Michael Sattler will become Group CFO.  Dr. Ross joins from Talanx AG where he was an Executive Board member in charge of the retail business in Germany. He was previously on the Executive Board of AXA Konzern AG.

Cinven’s investment strategy for Heidelberger Leben mirrors that of Guardian Financial Services in the UK. Cinven acquired Guardian, a UK provider of life and pension products with £8 billion in assets, from Aegon in November 2011.  Since then, Guardian has made two acquisitions: 300,000 in-payment pension annuities from Phoenix plc in June 2012 and Ark Life Assurance Company in December 2013. Guardian now manages approximately £16 billion of assets and approximately 976,000 policies.