December 7 (SeeNews) - Austria's Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) has acquired 2,700,465 voting shares of the capital of its Bulgarian subsidiary, Bulstrad - Vienna Insurance Group (Bulstrad VIG), representing the remaining 85.80% of the unit's capital it did not already own directly, Bulstrad VIG said.
The acquired shares have a face value of 10 levs ($5.8/5.1 euro) apiece, the target company said in a statement on Monday.
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After the acquisition, VIG is holding directly all of the 3,147,458 shares of the Sofia-based company. The change was entered in the Commercial Register on 3 December 2021, Bulstrad VIG said.
VIG owned directly a 14.20% stake at Bulstrad VIG at the end of 2020, data from Bulstrad's annual report for that year showed. The remaining stake of 85.80% was held by now-defunct TBI Bulgaria, a wholly-owned subsidiary of VIG.
Bulstrad VIG ranked second biggest in Bulgaria and 19th biggest in Southeast Europe (SEE) in terms of gross written premiums among insurers in the region in 2019, data from SeeNews' analysis of the top insurers in SEE for that year showed.
According to the most recent financial data, Austria's VIG turned a profit of 16.6 million euro ($18.7 million) from operations in Bulgaria in the first nine months of 2021, compared to a net loss of 46.2 million euro in the same period of 2020.
In October 2018 Bulgaria's financial regulator said that it allowed VIG to increase its direct shareholding in Bulstrad VIG, following the liquidation of its fully-owned subsidiary TBI Bulgaria.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
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