VIG buys AXA Insurance in Serbia

Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) is acquiring the insurance companies AXA Life Insurance and AXA Non-Life Insurance in Serbia, raising its market share to approximately 11.5%.

The purchase contract for the two companies AXA Neživotno osiguranje a.d.o. Beograd and AXA Životno osiguranje a.d.o. Beograd (AXA Srbija) was signed by VIG on 6 July 2016, while the acquisition awaits the approval of the relevant state institutions.

“On the basis of positive economic indicators for the future, Serbia is an interesting investment market for VIG”, announced Elisabeth Stadler, General Director of VIG. “This is one of four markets in which we wish to achieve a market penetration of at least 10 percent in a short time. Since AXA Serbia has a portfolio that complements ours, the acquisition of these two companies will enable us to reach this target even earlier.”

In 2015 these two AXA companies had a little over €12m in premiums, a market share of 1.8% and over 106,000 clients.

“AXA Serbia offers a broad palette of insurance products from accident, auto insurance and property insurance to life insurance”, said Peter Hofinger, member of VIG`s managing board with responsibility for Serbia. “These products resemble those that we are already selling successfully through our company Wiener Stadtische and they fit perfectly into our sales strategy. This acquisition will moreover allow us to seriously strengthen our sales force. AXA Serbia is also seen as one of the leaders in digitalisation, which is part of our long-term strategy.”

VIG works on the Serbian market through the company Wiener Stadtische Insurance, which earned over €61.6m in premiums in 2015, a growth of over 7% compared to the previous year, resulting in a market share of 9.7% at the year`s end. With the two AXA companies VIG is currently in fourth position on the Serbian insurance market, and just a step away from the third.

Translation provided by: www.halifax-translation.com