Belgians merge Ageas and Ocidental and create third largest Non-Life insurer

Ageas Portugal will absorb Ocidental Seguros, both companies owned by the Belgian group Ageas and together will form what will be the third-largest non-life insurer in Portugal.

With this operation, Ocidental Seguros will be extinguished, but the brand will remain, as well as the points of contact and offer will not undergo any changes, explained an official source from Ageas to ECO. The merger “arises under the mission to simplify the corporate legal structure” and “will not have internal or external impacts, keeping active the brand Ocidental, as well as all points of contact and the offer of products and services inherent to its business,” said the same source.

The merger will not jeopardise any jobs, guarantees the group led by Hans de Cuyper. The two companies employ over 600 employees: Ageas Portugal had 448 employees and Ocidental Seguros 223 at the end of last year.

The insurance distribution contract with the bank BCP will also remain as it is: “There is a solid long-term commitment with Millennium BCP, and no impact at contractual level is expected in the scope of this merger,” said the same source.

Ageas Portugal Holdings already held both companies, and the bank led by Miguel Maya, which owns a stake in Ocidental Seguros, will hold a stake in Ageas after this transaction.

Both Ageas Portugal and Ocidental Seguros operate in the non-life sector, and “together” they will now hold over 13% of market share in terms of direct insurance production, ranking third amongst the largest insurers in Portugal, just behind Fidelidade (27.6%) and Generali (18.4%).

The merger will be carried out through the “global transfer of the assets of Ocidental to Ageas Portugal, with the extinction of the former”, reads the merger project, with the management bodies of their companies considering the merger and the mode of operation as “perfectly justified essentially for reasons of economic rationality and reorganisation of activities and corporate restructuring”.

“Taking into consideration the unnecessary duplication of structures for the same purpose, the merger project aims to concentrate the incorporating company (Ageas Portugal) the Non-Life insurance and reinsurance activity, currently pursued by two companies in the same group with the same corporate purpose, operating in the same markets and with overlapping activities,” it explains.

The transfer of Ocidental’s insurance portfolio to Ageas now depends on the authorisation of the Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority (ASF).