Glimstedt has advised the Vienna Insurance Group on its acquisition of a majority of shares of the BTA Baltic Insurance Company, which is headquartered in Latvia and has branch offices in Lithuania and Estonia. Vilgerts advised BTA on the deal. The purchase agreement is subject to regulatory approval. Neither the percentage of shares acquired by VIG, nor the value of the acquisition, was disclosed.
Prior to this deal, BTA Baltic had just one shareholder: BTA Insurance Company SE. Key shareholders in BTA Insurance Company SE include Gints Dandzbergs and Pauls Dandzbergs, each of whom holds between 20-33% in the company.
“With this transaction we have achieved an important goal of VIG’s strategic development in the Baltics,” said Franz Fuchs, responsible for the Baltic markets on the VIG Managing Board. "We rank among the top players in life as well as in non-life in the Baltic States, for economic reasons a particularly interesting region within the EU. Moreover this acquisition opens up very good opportunities for cross selling of life and non-life products."
In 2014 BTA Baltic recorded gross premiums of around EUR 117 million (EUR 112 million in 2013), with Lithuania accounting for 46.1 percent of the total, Latvia for 40.5 percent, and Estonia for 13.4 percent. Profit before tax in 2014 amounted to EUR 10.6 million (EUR 6.6 million in 2013). The company has a market share of about 20 percent in Latvia, where it is the second-largest insurer on the non-life market. It is also the second-largest non-life insurer in Lithuania, with a market share of around 14 percent. BTA Baltic is Estonia’s seventh-biggest insurance company, with a market share of about 6 percent. Through the acquisition of BTA Baltic VIG will become one of the top 3 insurers in the non-life market of the Baltic States.
The Glimstedt team included Riga-based Partner Peteris Dalderis, Tallinn-based Associated Partner Leho Pihkva, and Vilnius-based Associated Partner Andrius Ivanauskas.
This marks VIG’s second acquisition in the Baltics in recent months, following its July 29, 2015, purchase of 100% of the shares of the Baltikums insurance company from BBG AS, Baltikums Bank AS, and two private individuals (reported by CEE Legal Matters on August 5, 2015).
Editor's Note: In late August 2016 Glimstedt reported that the transaction had closed.
