Nippon Life is negotiating to acquire Bermuda headquartered Resolution Life for $8.2bn, making it the biggest ever acquisition by a Japanese insurer. The last major acquisition in this sector was MS&AD acquiring UK non-life insurance and reinsurance company Amlin in 2015 for $5.3bn.
Resolution Life was founded by British philanthropist Sir Clive Cowdery and was a consolidator of closed book insurance – taking on life insurance policies from companies that wanted to focus their business elsewhere. As it was originally headquartered in the UK, many of the brands it now looks after are British, but it also has businesses in Australia and the USA – all together employing around 1,800 people. It moved its headquarters to Bermuda and had investments from private equity group Blackstone and Nippon Life. Nippon Life is now negotiating to acquire Blackstone’s share.
Nippon Life had already been seconding staff to Resolution Life to understand the closed book business and has been helping Resolution Life expand its business in Japan. Nippon Life has both a branch office and an investment subsidiary in London, employing around 30 people and an office in Germany.
It has been lagging behind on overseas expansion compared to other Japanese insurance companies, with only 4% of core profit coming from its overseas business, compared to Dai-ichi Life’s 34% in 2022.
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