By Amy-Jo Crowley and Carolyn Cohn
LONDON (Reuters) – Private equity firm Bain Capital has lined up advisers for the possible sale of British car and home insurer Esure, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Fenchurch is among the advisers tapped for the sale, two of the people said.
Potential bidders include Belgian insurer Ageas, which has said it wants to expand into British general insurance but gave up its pursuit of esure’s bigger rival Direct Line earlier this year, one of the people and the third said, speaking on condition of anonymity .
Esure could be worth at least 1 billion pounds ($1.31 billion) based on the company’s improving earnings prospects, one of the people said.
Bain declined to comment. Ageas says it never comments on market rumors. Fenchurch did not respond to a request for comment. Esure referred requests for comment to Bain.
Esure and Ageas use the same technology platform, EIS, which makes the target particularly attractive to Ageas, the person said. Esure’s smaller size, compared to Direct Line’s £2.4 billion, also makes it a manageable proposition for Ageas, the person added.
The sales talks come as the performance of auto and home insurers has suffered in recent years due to rising repair costs in an era of high inflation.
However, Esure reported a 17% increase in sales in the first half of 2024 and said it had completed the modernization of its technology, according to results posted on its website. Esure made a trading loss of £16.7m in 2023.
Esure, whose products include the careful driver brand Sheilas’ Wheels, was founded in 2000 by former Direct Line founder Peter Wood. Bain took esure privately in 2018 in a £1.21 billion deal.
($1 = 0.7621 pounds)
