Athora gains foothold in Italy with Amissima Vita

Athora Holding has agreed to acquire Italian life insurer Amissima Vita SpA. It’s the first step into the Italian life insurance market for the Bermudan life re/insurer, which is focussed on the European market.

Athora said the transaction was “part of its continuing growth strategy focused on traditional life savings and pension products”. It follows successful acquisitions by Athora in the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Germany.

Amissima Vita is a top 20 insurer by new business sales in Italy and provides customers with a broad life insurance offering through its bancassurance partners and a network of agents. With 140,000 policyholders and annual gross written premiums over €800 million, its assets stood at €7.2 billion at the end of last year. Since 2015, Amissima Vita has been owned by investment funds managed by affiliates of alternative investment firm Apollo Global Management.

Athora raised new equity commitments from existing shareholders to finance the transaction, and the impact on the group’s financial leverage ratio and capital position is expected to be limited.

The transaction is due to complete in the first half of 2022, subject to regulatory approval.

Michele Bareggi, Group CEO at Athora, said: “We have been strategically building Athora’s presence across Europe and are excited about the opportunity Amissima Vita provides as an important entry for the Italian market, where we see significant demand for our products and solutions.

“We intend to play a key role in meeting the demand for life savings products with Amissima Vita’s distributors and are committed to long-term growth in Italy.”