(Credit: Shutterstock)
The U.S. individual annuity now has a major new player: Fidelity National Financial Inc.
The Jacksonville, Florida-title insurer closed on FGL Holdings Monday. FGL is the George Town, Cayman Islands-based holding company that controls Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Company (F&G), which has its main offices in Des Moines, Iowa.
F&G generated $3.6 billion in annuity revenue in 2019, and it ranked 25th in the United States in terms of U.S. annuity revenue market share, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' latest insurer market share report.
Resources
- Documents related to the Fidelity National-Fidelity & Guaranty deal closing are available here.
- An article about the Fidelity National-Fidelity & Guaranty deal is available here.
F&G ranked just below OneAmerica Financial Partners Group and AEGON's Transamerica unit, which each generated about $4.1 billion in 2019 U.S. annuity revenue.
William Foley II, Fidelity National's chairman, said when the companies announced the deal, in February, that Fidelity National hopes to use the strength of its balance sheet to help F&G expand sales of annuities through the broker-dealer and bank channels.
Foley today said, in a comment included with the deal completion announcement, that Fidelity National still has big hopes for Fidelity & Guaranty.
"The acquisition of F&G offers FNF entry to an industry that is counter-cyclical to FNF's title insurance business," Foley said in the comment. "FNF's size, scale, and financial strength provides F&G with strategic advantages to grow and capitalize on incremental organic and inorganic growth opportunities."
Foley said Fidelity National is excited about completing the acquisition ahead of schedule.
The Deal
The companies said when the deal was announced that Fidelity National would pay about $2.7 billion in cash and stock for FGL. The original deal completion deadline was Sept. 30.
That was before concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic put the stock market on a rollercoaster.
The companies now say Fidelity National ended up paying FGL shareholders about $1.8 billion in cash and 27 million shares of common stock.
Fidelity National reported a $61 million net loss for the first quarter on $1.6 billion in revenue. It ended the quarter with about $10 billion in assets.
