VIENNA TO BUY AXA LIFE AND SAVINGS BUSINESS IN HUNGARY

Austria-based Vienna Insurance Group is to buy the Hungarian life and savings business of French insurer Axa through the purchase of a 100% stake in Axa Biztosító Zrt. VIG chief executive Peter Hagen said that “Hungary is one of those core markets where we have been looking to enhance our presence for some time now. So, it is all the more pleasing that we have completed this agreement before year-end". AXA Biztosító booked premiums of €31m ($42.6m) in the first nine months of 2013. 92% of it from life assurance. The company focuses on unit-linked products. AXA Biztosító is ranked 13th in the Hungarian life. It operates nationwide and sells through its own sales subsidiary, as well as through intermediaries. It has around 120 employees. Last May the then VIG chief executive Günther Geyer said that Vienna was focusing its expansion plans on the Hungarian market (IIN 24, May 31 2013), which it first entered in 1996. Its current operating subsidiaries in the country are composite Union Biztosító and life assurer Erste Biztosító. It is ranked eighth overall in Hungary, with a larger non-life than life operation. Erste Biztosító sells life products through Erste Bank in Hungary. Vienna posted premiums of €115m in Hungary in the first nine months of the year. Axa said that the deal would result in a capital loss of about €40m, to be accounted for in net income this year. Axa added that it would continue to have banking operations in Hungary.