Liberty Mutual to buy Quinn?

The US’s fifth largest general insurer Liberty Mutual is interested in buying Quinn Insurance to expand into Europe, the Irish Times reports.

Liberty already has a business in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Dublin and also has a small presence in Britain.

The company confirmed it had contacted the joint administrators of Quinn Insurance, Michael McAteer and Paul McCann of accountants Grant Thornton, expressing an interest in the Cavan-based Quinn.

Sale not a priority

The administrators told the High Court yesterday that a sale was not their priority “at this time” but that they had held talks with Quinn Group, on a joint approach to any proposed sale.

Boston-based Liberty Mutual, run by chairman and chief executive Edmund Kelly, made profits of $315m (€255m) from revenues of $8.2bn in the first quarter of this year. It is owned by its policyholders and had assets of $109bn last December. It employs 45,000 people in 26 countries.

Quinn under reserved

In a report presented to the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, the administrators said a review by auditors had found that Quinn Insurance had under-provided for liabilities by €68 million last year.

The boards of 25 Quinn Insurance subsidiaries will resign and be replaced by the administrators. Quinn can pay its debts and that the administrators do not intend applying to the Insurance Compensation Fund.

Administrators’ fees

The administrators are seeking costs of €565,000 for work carried out between March 30th and April 30th, and want to invoice the firm monthly to the end of July for sums not exceeding €1.8m.

“They want to pay their solicitors €120,000 and their public relations firm Hume Brophy €50,000 for work between March 30th and April 30th and a further €10,000 a month from this month to July.

Mr Justice Kearns said he wanted independent material on which he could assess these costs.