RSA sells Baltics and Polish operations for £300m

RSA has sold its Baltics and Polish operations to Poland’s biggest insurer PZU for £300m in cash.

RSA revealed in its annual results in February that it was aiming to raise £300m from disposals as part of the plan to shore up its capital base.

The insurer is selling four companies in total. RSA expects the deals to be complete in the second half of 2014.

RSA’s Baltics operations comprise three companies: Lietuvos Draudimas in Lithuania, AAS Balta in Latvia and the Estonian branch of RSA subsidiary Codan.

The insurer’s Polish operation is called Link4 Towarzystwo Ubezpieczen Spolka Akcyjna.

The transactions will add about £200m to RSA’s net tangible assets.

RSA group chief executive Stephen Hester said: “These disposals are in line with our stated aim of focusing the group’s geographical spread onto its core businesses in the UK and Ireland, Scandinavia, Canada and Latin America, and represent a good deal for our shareholders, customers and employees.

“The total sale proceeds represent significant progress against our overall target of at least £300m of disposal proceeds set for 2014, and also demonstrate the strong underlying value that exists within RSA. We will continue to evaluate further non-core disposals, some of which we expect to occur during 2014.

“In our core businesses, we will continue to target markets and segments where we can sustain leadership positions with customers while earning returns in excess of our cost of capital. Our ambition is for RSA to be a resilient and valuable company, performing at its best, and reliably so,” he said.