SOFIA (Bulgaria), September 1 (SeeNews) – Bulgaria’s Euroins Insurance Group (EIG), part of financial group Eurohold Bulgaria, has bought 10% of its Serbian peer Takovo Osiguranje for 3.65 million euro ($5.3 million) and plans to set up a leasing company in Serbia, Eurohold said on Monday.
The deal was struck on the Belgrade Stock Exchange on August 29, Eurohold said in a filing with the Bulgarian Stock Exchange’s information service X3 News.
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Takovo is the sixth largest of the 18 insurers operating in Serbia, Eurohold said. The company expects to have gross written premium income of 26 million euro in 2008.
The Serbian insurer had gross written premium of 1.4 billion dinars (18.4 million euro) last year.
EIG plans to set up a leasing company in Serbia at a later stage, Eurohold said without elaborating.
Eurohold Bulgaria has said it expects to finalise the acquisition of an unnamed insurance company in southeast Europe by the end of the year. The group has said it is exploring opportunities for the expansion of its insurance business in Albania, Serbia, Moldova and Turkey and is also eyeing Ukraine and Russia, where growth is strong and the penetration of insurance services is low.
Euroins Insurance Group, which operates in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania, has reported a 32% increase to 64.7 million levs in gross written premium for the first five months of the year. It has said it expects its gross written premium to reach 185 million levs in 2008.
Shares in Eurohold were traded at 4.81 levs by 0713 GMT on Monday, down 2.2% from the previous close.
($ = 0.6824 euro)
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