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Tag: Mutual

  • Mutual to launch 50 micro products

    Mutual to launch 50 micro products

    Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc is set to roll out 50 micro-insurance products as part of efforts to boost the Market Development and Restructuring Initiative (MDRI).

    Its Group Managing Director, Akin Ogunbiyi, who made this known in a media parley in Lagos, said the first batch would be introduced in April, adding that the products were developed along social, demographic, trade groups and risks peculiar to each segment of the nation.

    He said the firm has taken time and expertise to develop the different products for the different groups and needs, as there are no more ‘Off the shelf ‘products for everybody.

    Speaking on means to get the products across to Nigerians, Ogunbiyi said the firm would open 200 offices by 2015, adding that 32 offices were opened last year and that the number would reach 70 by December this year. He said the effort would bring existing and new offices of the firm nationwide to 96 by the end of this year, adding that Lagos, Oyo, Osun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were used as the pilot states.

    He said the firm would create 22,000 new jobs by 2015 in line with the man-power need of the industry under the MDRI.

  • Mutual Benefits aims high

    Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc said it has positioned itself to take over as the leading insurance firm in the country in the next three years.

    To realise its plans, the underwriting company disclosed that it has undertaken strategic investments in various sectors of the economy.

    The Group Managing Director (GMD), Akin Ogunbiyi, in an interview with The Nation, said:“With a lot of successes already recorded in the retail space of the insurance market, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc is expanding beyond insurance into property, housing development; mass transportation and investment in other subsidiaries within and outside the shores of Nigeria.

    “We want to be number one in the industry by 2015 in all fundamentals,” he said.

    On the company’s performance in 2012, the helmsman said though the result has not been released, he is sure the company would record about 35 per cent growth in premium volume, adding that the company achieved premium income of N10.7 billion in 2011, and made a profit before tax of N916.9 million, as against N892.2 million in 2010.

    Its profit after tax rose from N758.4 million in 2010 to N763.8 million in 2011, while claims settlement increased from N731.5 million in 2010 to N1.02 billion in the 2011 financial period.

    Ogunbiyi said the underwriting firm has invested N3 billion in the development of Mutual Alpha Courts at Costain, Lagos, adding that the work had reached about 75 per cent completion stage.

    He said the firm’s investment in marginal oil field was almost at its completion stage, while other investments were yielding returns in line with its projection.

    He said with a workforce in excess of 4,000, the firm is pulling long terms funds that leave room for more expansion in other sectors of the economy.

    He said the company’s success story is also hinged on the quality of its product offerings, adding that the firm has in its offerings, 45 different products, which allow the insured to make savings for the future.

    “What we have done is to design our products to reach the mass market. The premiums are as low as N50 daily and these have offered the lower class of the society, the market women and the artisans the opportunity to get insured”

    According to him, beyond its huge investment in the Lagos Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) project, it has invested in the Imo State Transport Company (ITC).

    “Before we came into ITC to provide vehicles for the company, it was almost moribund and, today, life has returned in that company and the state government is happy with us,” Ogunbiyi said.

    We are not stopping there; rather, we are determined to make insurance more relevant in the economy by providing long term funding for development of other sectors, he added.

  • Old Mutual completes acquisition of Oceanic Life

    Old Mutual and the Ecobank Group, announced yesterday that the former has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Oceanic Life of the former Oceanic Bank in Nigeria, which was acquired by Ecobank.

    In a statement, the firms said the transaction will result in a name change from Oceanic Life Limited to Old Mutual Nigeria.

    “We are delighted to have completed the acquisition of this majority stake and we continue to work with Ecobank to expand our product offerings to the Nigerian market. The growth dynamics of the industry are exciting and prospects are good for further development of our business operations in West Africa,” Ralph Mupita, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Old Mutual’s Emerging Markets business said.

    Also commenting, Ecobank CEO, Thierry Tanoh said the transaction is a welcome development, adding that Old Mutual is renowned as one of the finest insurance providers in Africa. “Ecobank Group would rather concentrate in its core area, which is banking, and leave insurance business for the experts, which Old Mutual represents. Ecobank will remain a minority shareholder in Old Mutual Nigeria,” he said.

  • Insurer Old Mutual to acquire Ecobank’s insurance unit

    Insurer Old Mutual is set to buy the property and casualty insurance unit of pan-African lender Ecobank for about $20 million, it was learnt.

    The company, which aims at boosting its presence in the sub-Saharan Africa to cash in on the region’s strong economic growth, also said its German and Austrian life operations would stop writing new business as they no longer meet its investment criteria.

    Old Mutual has over the past three years sold businesses, including its Nordic life insurance unit to repay debt and dispel investor concerns that the group lacked focus and would be worth more broken up.

    Old Mutual had life insurance sales of 278 million pounds, in the three months to September 30, down 10 percent from a year earlier, and in line with the 2752 million pounds expected by analysts in a company poll.

    Non-covered sales rose four per cent to 3.76 billion pounds, ahead of the 3.2 billion pounds penciled in by analysts.

    Shares in Old Mutual, which quit its historic home of South Africa and listed in London in 1999, closed at 174 pence last week about 8.4 billion pounds.

    The stock has risen 27 percent in the past year, outperforming a six percent increase for the FTSE 100 share index.