RSA takeover news gets shareholders excited
Shares in insurance group RSA surged by nearly 50% last week after news of a possible takeover.

Shares in insurance group RSA surged by nearly 50% last week after it was revealed that Canadian insurer Intact Financial and its Danish counterpart Tryg have jointly approached it about a possible takeover, says the BBC. Valuing RSA at £7.2bn, the deal would be “the biggest takeover of a UK-listed company so far this year”. It would see RSA’s operations split up, with Intact keeping the Canada and UK divisions, and Tryg taking control of RSA’s Sweden and Norway units. The two firms have until 3 December to make a formal offer.
No wonder RSA’s shareholders have reacted “ecstatically”, says Ian King on Sky News. RSA is “not a company that will be greatly missed”. Thanks to unwise acquisitions and poor cost control, it has become notorious for missing profit expectations over the past two decades. While the current CEO Stephen Hester is regarded as “having done a good job”, even he “has never really succeeded” in persuading investors that RSA can deliver “above-average returns”.
Shareholders are unlikely to get a better offer, says Chris Hughes on Bloomberg. While RSA “has long been talked of as a bid target”, few potential buyers will want its “unusual bundle” of UK, Scandinavian and Canadian assets. Some, such as rival Aviva, are not only looking to conserve capital, but will be loath to enter a public auction against a consortium with “plausible synergy potential” when the starting price is “already high”. RSA shareholders would be wise to “dot the i’s and extract a binding offer here”.
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Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.
He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.
Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.
As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.
Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri
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