November 14 (SeeNews) - Italy's Fata Assicurazioni, a unit of global insurer Generali, has paid 10 million euro ($14.7 million) for a 67% stake it acquired in Bulgarian sector company Victoria, Fata general director Giorgio Cagnetti said on Wednesday.
The company does not plan to further increase its stake in the Bulgarian insurer as the “33% [owned by the Bulgarian partners] will help Fata develop in Bulgaria,” Cagnetti told a news conference.
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Victoria is the second Bulgarian insurer acquired by Generali within a year and Fata's second acquisition in southeastern Europe. Fata, specialising in farm insurance, has also a unit in Romania. In 2006 Generali acquired for an undisclosed price Orel-G holding company which it later renamed to Generali Bulgaria Holding.
“We expect that Victoria will become a leader in the agricultural sector within three to four years,” Victoria board chairman Dancho Danchev told the same news conference.
The Bulgarian general insurance market grew by 15% last year and by 25% in 2005 and is expected to register robust growth after the country's entry to the EU in the beginning of this year. Bulgaria will have access to more than 11 billion euro in EU funding between 2007-2013, most of them for the agriculture sector.
Victoria ranked 12th biggest Bulgarain insurer in terms of premium income with a market share of around 2.0% as of end of August.
Some 20 insurers operate in Bulgaria, the largest of which are owned by European majors such as KBC, Allianz, Wiener Staedtische and Uniqa.
($ = 0.6807 euro)