Petrom, deal of the year for insurers

The biggest deal that lies ahead of insurers and insurance brokers in Romania in 2004 is the privatisation of Petrom, a company whose assets are worth $3bn. The company, which is exposed to tremendous risks because of its drilling, refining and distribution of oil products operations, does not have a global insurance programme at the moment. The buyer, to be selected in the first half of this year, will decide on the insurance programme as needed. “Petrom’s offshore oil rigs are insured by a British company. We took steps to cut the risks for our other assets down to a minimum and let the future investor insure the assets as a whole,” Gheorghe Constantinescu, SNP Petrom’s general manager told Ziarul Financiar. Petrom’s investor will most likely include the insurance of the Romanian company in its own insurance programme, but chances are the Romanian insurance companies will participate in this, as well, analysts say. Anyway, everybody, be it insurers or insurance brokers, is keeping an eye on this privatisation. “We’re monitoring the development of Petrom’s privatisation. As far as insurance goes, the identity of the investor will matter. The list of potential investors includes clients of AON (KaRo Company’s partner i.e.), ” said Karina Rosu, KaRo Asigurari (Insurance) CEO. ZF