CGNU in Partnership Talks with France’s MMA

CGNU, Britain’s largest insurer, is in talks with the French group Mutuelles du Mans Assurances aimed at establishing a partnership arrangement which would strengthen its position in the French life and pension market, and bolster MMA’s and its subsidiary MAAF’s, p/c business.

MMA/MAAF is France’s 5th largest p/c insurer with €2.3 billion ($1.93 billion) in premium income last year. Taking over some of CGNU’s French p/c operations would considerably increase that, while CGNU has made no secret of its intentions to concentrate on the life and pension market.

The announcement drew an immediate negative reaction from international rating agency Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded the ratings of CGNU’s main French p/c subsidiaries, Abeille Assurances and CGU Courtage from double-‘A’ to single ‘A’ with negative implications.

S&P explained the move as reflecting its “assessment of a change in the strategic importance of these two companies to the CGNU Group.

If the current talks lead to transferring these two businesses to MMA, these ratings could be further reduced as a result of MMA’s weaker profile.”