Legal and General Group and Commercial International Bank have sold Egyptian offshoot Commercial International Life Insurance Company SAE to Axa for £62.7m.
The insurer is jointly owned by L&G with 55 per cent, and CIB with 45 per cent.
CIL was formed in 1998 and was the first life insurance company in Egypt to adopt the bancassurance model. It has 90,000 individual insurance policies and provides retirement benefits, group life and credit life insurance for circa 350,000 customers.
Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals, and is expected to take place by the end of 2015.
Simon Burke, managing director for emerging markets at L&G, said that their strategy of building scalable, customer-focused, long-term businesses has been achieved in Egypt, so “now is the right time to hand the business over”.
At the start of the month the group also offloaded its Dublin-based offshore business, L&G International, to Canada Life Group for an undisclosed sum.
peter.walker@ft.com
