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The European insurance affiliate of Apollo Global Management is nearing a £6bn takeover of UK retirement savings group Pension Insurance Corporation, a deal that will further push the US alternative assets giant into the UK insurance market.
Athora, a European-based subsidiary of Apollo, is near acquiring full ownership of PIC from a consortium of investors, including CVC Capital and Reinet Investments, a vehicle backed by South African billionaire Johann Rupert, in response to three people briefed on the matter. A deal could possibly be announced as soon as this week.
The acquisition would push Athora, which operates in countries including Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, into the UK, the biggest retirement market in Europe.
It could come as US private capital giants akin to Apollo, Brookfield Asset Management, KKR and Carlyle have either begun operating within the UK retirement market or studied acquisitions lately.
PIC declined to comment. Apollo and CVC didn’t immediately respond. Sky News first reported that PIC was nearing a sale.
PIC, which manages about £50bn in assets and has nearly 400,000 policyholders within the UK, would roughly double Athora’s size, in response to company filings. It could also put PIC under the complete ownership of Athora, a fast-growing, pan-European insurer that’s minority owned by Apollo.
Apollo acts as a what is known as a “subadviser” managing Athora’s assets, meaning it could probably have a hand in managing the assets of PIC’s customers.
The sale of PIC can be a big windfall for its owners, who also include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and US credit investor HPS Investment Management. HPS earlier this week accomplished its $12bn sale to BlackRock.
PIC’s value has roughly tripled since CVC first invested in 2017. Reinet, a Luxembourg-based investment vehicle, first invested in PIC in 2012, buying a 43 per cent stake for £400mn and increasing its investment over time.
PIC has expanded quickly under Reinet and CVC’s ownership by taking on corporate pension fund liabilities, and the assets that back them. In 2023, it acquired £6.5bn of liabilities from general insurer RSA, then the largest UK deal of its kind.
Athora had studied an acquisition of PIC for years, and the insurer had previously drawn interest from other US private capital giants, including Carlyle and KKR, the Financial Times previously reported.
In recent times, Apollo has been an energetic investor within the UK, buying firms including Restaurant Group, the owner of the Wagamama food chain. Last month it committed to lend £4.5bn to fund the event of a nuclear power station in Somerset, England.
In 2022, a distinct Apollo insurance subsidiary, Athene, bought greater than $1bn of assets from UK pension funds during a crisis triggered by the UK’s disastrous “mini” Budget.