INSIG put up for sale again

TIRANA, July 12 – The Finance Ministry has announced it intends to hold another international tender on the sale of state-owned insurer, INSIG, at the end of this month. This would be government’s fourth attempt to sell INSIG, one of the few remaining important public assets government intends to sell as part of a privatization wave it has launched.
Established in 1991, INSIG has over 130 000 clients. The company now operates in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, with estimated assets of 63 million USD.
American Reserve Life Insurance, a part of Heritage Guaranty Holdings, withdrew at the last moment in June 2009 after offering 25 million euros ($36.9 million) for 61% of INSIG’s shares six months ago.
State-owned insurer INSIG which has been put on the privatization list of public assets, is currently the fifth biggest insurer, controlling 7.6 percent of the compulsory insurance market and 11.7 percent of the voluntary, according to the latest Financial Supervisory Authority data.
INSIG, once a monopoly on the Albanian insurance market, has been losing its market share in recent years due to tough competition from private players.
Economy Minister Dritan Prifti said the sale of insurer INSIG and the remaining state-owned shares of Albtelecom and OSSH would allow the government to collect between 100 and 150 million euros.
“The next two years, 2010 and 2011, will be years of the major privatizations,” Prifti said. “We have chosen privatization as a reform strategy to diminish public property, especially when it is not efficient.”
Other public assets to be privatized include large enterprises like Albpetrol and a lot of real estate currently managed by the several government bodies, including the Defense Ministry.
Government will put up for sale every remaining state-owned property except for the hydropower plants on River Drin cascade, as well as education and health facilities in an effort to save the country’s endangered public finances and cut high public debt levels.