Share price in RSA Insurance Group rises as company completes disposal of Brazil operation to Suramericana in its bid to leave Latin America
Share price in RSA Insurance Group rose today as the company waved goodbye to its Brazil operations, after completing on its disposal to Suramericana.
RSA first announced that it would be selling its Latin American operations to Suramericana for roughly £403m last September.
At the time of the September announcement, Stephen Hester, group chief executive of RSA, said:
With RSA’s focus on its largest markets in the UK & Ireland, Scandinavia and Canada, it has become increasingly clear to us that RSA is no longer the best strategic owner of these businesses. In Suramericana we have an experienced and committed regional player who can make the business a much more central part of their strategy.
In today's statement, RSA revealed that it expects the sales on the rest of its Latin American holdings, which are in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay, to complete over the next six months.
Read more: RSA: Turnaround is on track despite the failed deal
Suramericana is the insurance subsidiary of Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana.
Share price in RSA was trading up two per cent at 443.6p just before 4pm London time.
In January this year, RSA completed on its sale of its Italian business to ITAS Mutua, which was initially announced in October 2014 and was previously expected to complete within the second half of 2015.
Meanwhile, during 2015, the insurer agreed sales on operations in Russia, and completed on disposals of business in China and Singapore.
Last week, the company announced a boost in profits for its year ended December 2015 to £323m, up from £275m in 2014.