INSIG soon in a new privatization attempt

TIRANA, August 13ؔhe state owner insurance company, INSIG, is expected to go under the latest privatization attempt in the next week in a planned international tender. The government has approved a new law for the privatization of all 100% INSIG shares, previously considered to be a strategic company.
Previous privatization attempts have proved futile, the latest happening only this spring. “American Reserve Insurance” won a public tender earlier this year, but post-privatization talks between the company and the Albanian authorities failed to agree on several details.
The government moved INSIG out of the strategic companies list in order to ease the process of its privatization. That means that company can be sold also to buyers who have no previous experience in the insurance sector. The Ministry of Finances has put a 25 million euro price tag on INSIG.
The company registered e 3 million USD consolidated profit in 2008. It also recorded total revenues of 4 million euro in the first half of 2009 from the non-life insurance segment. The company has, for the first time since losing its monopoly, increased its market share this year. Being a state owned company, it benefits from the fact that authorities require all institutional cars to be insured at INSIG, but it ranks only third in total revenues compared to the rest of the market. The company has survived many financial crisis in previous years, mainly to positive performances from its Kosovo branch.
Since 2003, the company was jointly owned by the Albanian government, the International Financial Corporation (IFC), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The presence of IFC and EBRD in the company was to guarantee private investors for the worth value of INSIG, but the ever dragging process of privatization convinced the two international institutions to sell back their shares to the Albanian government.