(Photo: Michael Nagle/BB)
The CEO of Europe's biggest insurer is up for a big deal. He just doesn't want Allianz SE to pay for it. Oliver Baete is going to find it hard to have his cake and eat it.
Three years into the job, and things are going well for him: Allianz reckons it has surplus capital and the shares have outperformed their peers despite a recent wobble. But Europe's insurance market is only growing slowly, and the group is keen to boost its general insurance business, which is less capital intensive than life and savings. A deal would put some of Allianz's surplus cash to work, generate savings and re-shape the group.
Baete has long-list of potential targets, including Zurich Insurance Group AG, Aviva PLC and RSA Insurance Group PLC, Bloomberg News reported last week.
A small deal wouldn't make much difference to Allianz, which has a market value of 76 billion euros ($87 billion). But big deals mean large premiums. The standard top-up of 30% on a 5 billion-euro takeover would cost 1.5 billion euros. For a company the size of, say, Zurich, the equivalent would be 13 billion euros. Axa SA agreed to pay a 57% premium for XL Group Ltd. in March — and its shareholders are livid.
Faced with this dilemma, Baete recently floated the idea of a merger of equals in an interview with the Financial Times. But this would need a target willing to play the junior partner and agree to a combination at prevailing market values with no premium.
