January 3 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Euroins Insurance Group (EIG), part of Eurohold Bulgaria [BUL:EUBG], said that it has agreed to dispose of its wholly-owned subsidiary in Belarus and to shed its 48.61% equity stake in a Russian business as part of its strategy to focus only on key markets with a positive growth outlook.
The buyer is a company from Russia, EIG said in a bourse filing on Saturday without naming the party to the contract.
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The insurer will retain its holdings in other companies in the region, namely in Georgia and Ukraine. EIG noted that its combined insurance business in Russia and Belarus formed under 1% of its revenue for 2022.
Eurohold reported earlier that its insurance business under EIG generated a premium income of 2 billion levs ($1.08 billion/1.02 billion euro) in the first nine months of 2022, recording an annual growth rate of 44.7%. Gross written premiums (GWP) from its two Ukrainian subsidiaries amounted to 28 million levs in January-September against 47 million levs a year earlier. Their performance was deemed stable in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
EIG has been present in Georgia since 2018 when it acquired local insurer IC Group and took control of the business, growing its stake to over 50% after a capital increase.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)