Apollo-backed Athora nearing takeover of UK’s Pension Insurance Corporation

Keep knowledgeable with free updatesSimply signal as much as the Personal fairness myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox.A European insurance coverage group backed by Apollo World Administration is nearing a £6bn takeover of UK retirement financial savings group Pension Insurance coverage Company, a deal that may additional push the US various property big into the UK insurance coverage market.Athora, a European-based insurer minority owned by Apollo, is near buying full possession of PIC from a consortium of traders, together with CVC Capital and Reinet Investments, a car backed by South African billionaire Johann Rupert, based on three folks briefed on the matter. A deal might be introduced as quickly as this week.The acquisition would push Athora, which operates in nations together with Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, into the UK, the biggest retirement market in Europe. It will come as US non-public capital giants comparable to Apollo, Brookfield Asset Administration, KKR and Carlyle have both begun working within the UK retirement market or studied acquisitions lately.PIC declined to remark. Apollo and CVC didn’t instantly reply. Sky Information first reported that PIC was nearing a sale. PIC, which manages about £50bn in property and has almost 400,000 policyholders within the UK, would roughly double Athora’s measurement, based on firm filings. It will additionally put PIC below the total possession of Athora, a fast-growing, pan-European insurer that’s backed by Apollo. Apollo acts as a what known as a “subadviser” managing a few of Athora’s property, which means it might have a hand in managing the property of PIC’s clients. The sale of PIC can be a big windfall for its house owners, who additionally embody Abu Dhabi Funding Authority and US credit score investor HPS Funding Administration. HPS earlier this week accomplished its $12bn sale to BlackRock.PIC’s worth has roughly tripled since CVC first invested in 2017. Reinet, a Luxembourg-based funding car, first invested in PIC in 2012, shopping for a 43 per cent stake for £400mn and rising its funding over time. PIC has expanded shortly below Reinet and CVC’s possession by taking up company pension fund liabilities, and the property that again them. In 2023, it acquired £6.5bn of liabilities from common insurer RSA, then the most important UK deal of its sort.RecommendedAthora had studied an acquisition of PIC for years, and the insurer had beforehand drawn curiosity from different US non-public capital giants, together with Carlyle and KKR, the Monetary Occasions beforehand reported.Lately, Apollo has been an energetic investor within the UK, shopping for firms together with Restaurant Group, the proprietor of the Wagamama meals chain. Final month it dedicated to lend £4.5bn to fund the event of a nuclear energy station in Somerset, England. In 2022, a unique Apollo insurance coverage subsidiary, Athene, purchased greater than $1bn of property from UK pension funds throughout a disaster triggered by the UK’s disastrous “mini” Finances.