adminSanlam Emerging Markets says it is looking to expand into Zimbabwe in the next year or two after its Kenyan subsidiary made an acquisition in a short-term insurance business in the east African country. Sanlam Emerging Markets said Kenyan subsidiary Pan African Insurance Holdings (PAIHL) had bought a 56 percent stake in Gateway Insurance Company for about $8m, reports Business Day.
The deal gives Sanlam an opportunity to sell the full gamut of non-banking financial services in Kenya.
‘Historically we have always been in Kenya.
‘We had a life and asset management company … We needed to get into general insurance,’ Sanlam Emerging Markets corporate development executive Thabied Majal said.
Majal said the company had an option to grow its 56 percent stake in PAIHL to 60 percent, but would wait for the right time to do so.
The Sanlam Emerging Markets deal comes after Old Mutual Emerging Markets acquired a majority stake in UAP, the third largest general insurer in Kenya, in January for about $253m.
The report says the acquisitions form part of a strategy by SA companies to tap into the higher economic growth and lower insurance penetration in the rest of Africa. – Business Day.
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