Hungarian group OTP reportedly interested in Romania's second-largest insurer

Hungarian group OTP is planning to take over Romania’s second-largest insurance company, Asirom, in a bid to penetrate the Romanian market and to create a powerful financial group, according to sources close to the two companies.

Asirom has already selected KPMG to conduct an evaluation of the company, with talks between Ion Nicolae, who controls Asirom through the Interagro group and the potential buyers slated to start this autumn, the quoted sources say.

Early this year, OTP bought RoBank that, however, is deemed as too small by the Hungarian group, which is willing to invest more than 100 million euros in the Romanian market of financial services, beside the 45 million euros it paid for RoBank.

Thus, OTP is trying to create an integrated financial group, with insurance being one of its top priorities.

Ion Nicolae, the owner of Interagro, is not disputing reports on his rounds of talks with OTP, but says that several companies have been and still are interested in Asirom.

“We did hire KPMG, but this does not necessarily mean that I am going to sell the company. I know that OTP is interested, but so are another three or four large companies. If there is an offer, we will talk, but I have been talking with various companies over the last two years and I ended up not selling,” Nicolae says.

The OTP officials did not deny rumours on the group’s interest in Asirom, either.

“OTP spoke of plans to build a financial group in Romania when it bought RoBank. To reach this target, OTP will enter the insurance market, either by buying a company or by creating a new one,” OTP officials maintained.

According to insurance market sources, OTP has had several attempts at buying a Romanian insurer in the past few months, such as Croma (under liquidation) and Metropol.

The Hungarian group’s efforts to enter the Romanian market are hindered by the fact that there are very few companies ‘for sale’, with many important insurers already held by strategic investors. Moreover, company owners are reluctant to sell, as the insurance market is poised for growth, according to analysts.

Beside Asirom, only four other companies still have Romanian capital: Asiban, Ardaf, BCR Asigurari (BCR Insurance) and Astra. The other five, namely Allianz-Tiriac, Omniasig, Unita, Generali and AIG Romania are controlled either by large foreign insurance groups, which have development plans, or by investment funds (in the case of Omniasig), which are even less likely to sell. Especially since Omniasig has bought two smaller companies in the past three months.

Of the Romanian-held companies, Astra and BCR Asigurari can be safely crossed of OTP’s list. In the case of Astra, company officials have repeatedly said that they are not willing to sell and they have big plans for the company, whereas BCR Asigurari is tied to its parent bank – BCR, which is undergoing privatisation procedures.

Ardaf is controlled by Romanian businessman Ovidiu Tender, with Asiban held by a group of banks.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro