American Reserve Life Insurance buys Insig for 25 million

TIRANA, Dec 9 – American Reserve Life Insurance Company (ARL) has purchased 61 percent of Albania’s state-owned insurance company Insig at a cost of 25 million Euros.
The Dallas-based US company, winner in an international tender with nine other bidders, is in the final technical negotiations with Albanian authorities, according to a statement from the Finance Ministry on Tuesday.
The ministry also said the offer was more than two million Euros higher than expected.
Insig became Albania’s state-owned insurance company in 1991, and now ranks second and third in life and non-life insurance in the country’s insurance market along with ten other private insurance companies.
In 2003, the International Financial Corporation and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development each received 19.5 per cent of Insig shares.
Insig, with some 210 employees in Albania and its branches in Kosovo and Macedonia, has total estimated assets of 49 million ($63 million).