The Competition Tribunal has approved the proposed merger wherein Sanlam Life Insurance intends to acquire Assupol Holdings, subject to an employment-related condition.
This comes after Sanlam in February announced intends to acquire 100% shareholding in Assupol, pending shareholder and regulatory approval, for R6.5 billion.
The transaction will see Assupol become part of Sanlam’s retail mass cluster and together with Sanlam Sky, Safrican and the Capitec JV, which will close at the end of October 2024, it will place Sanlam in a strong position to service the financial services needs of South Africans.
This transaction also followed the announcement last year that Budvest Proprietary Limited, which holds 46.02% of Assupol’s securities, as well as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), holding 19.41% of Assupol, that it intended to dispose of their respective shareholdings. Both have been shareholders in Assupol for 10 years.
Budvest and IFC provided irrevocable undertakings to vote in favour of all the resolutions required to implement the Scheme of Arrangement.
Following the implementation of the proposed transaction, Sanlam will exercise sole control over Assupol.
Sanlam Life is wholly owned and controlled by Sanlam Limited, a public company listed on the Johannesburg, Namibian and A2X stock exchanges. Sanlam provides financial solutions to institutional clients and consumers across all market segments.
Its areas of expertise include insurance (life and non-life), financial planning, retirement, investment and wealth management. Sanlam operates across the African continent, India, Malaysia and various other countries.
Assupol is a public company listed on the Cape Town Stock Exchange. For its latest financial year ending 30 June 2023, Assupol reported an embedded value of over R7bn, gross insurance premium revenue of over R5bn and a solvency cover ratio of 179%.
It is the holding company of the Assupol group of companies which operate through two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Assupol Life, a registered life insurer and authorised financial services provider which offers funeral cover, life cover, pre-and post-retirement products, savings products to individual clients and funeral cover to group schemes in South Africa, and Assupol Investment, the investment holding company that houses the Assupol Group’s strategic investments.
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