Chesnara alive to more acquisitions

CHESNARA, the North West-based holding company for the life insurer Countrywide Assured, says it is still alive to acquisition opportunities.

The Preston-based firm, which splashed out £63.5m last December to buy insurance and pensions firm Save & Prosper from JP Morgan said in a trading update it was still open to more M&A activity.

It said: “We continue to see a good flow of potential acquisition opportunities and, as  demonstrated by the Save & Prosper acquisition, we will readily progress these where we see value and a clear strategic fit.

“As regards other opportunities,  while we remain open-minded as to location in the UK and Western Europe, we will continue to apply strict financial and risk criteria in assessing them.”

Chesnara – whose assets in the UK and Sweden are closed to new business – said it had increased its European Embedded Value  to £365.7m in the first quarter.

The firm said this was “ahead of expectations” in spite of negligible growth in UK equity markets and modest falls in the Swedish equity markets over the quarter.

“The EEV results for all businesses benefited from a gently rising interest rate environment in both swap and gilt markets.”