Latest news with #PeterWood
The Guardian
14-04-2025
- Automotive
- The Guardian
Belgian insurer buys Sheilas' Wheels owner Esure in £1.3bn deal
The Sheilas' Wheels owner, Esure, will be sold to the Belgian insurer Ageas in a £1.3bn deal that will create the UK's third-biggest home and motor insurer. Ageas is buying the UK insurer from the private equity firm Bain Capital in a deal funded through a combination of surplus cash and debt or equity. The Belgian firm had tried to expand its UK presence by bidding for the car insurer Direct Line twice last year, but was unsuccessful, and Direct Line is being taken over by the UK's biggest insurer Aviva in a £3.7bn deal instead. Esure, which owns the esure, Sheilas' Wheels and First Alternative brands, sells insurance online through price-comparison websites and broker partnerships. It has been owned by Bain Capital since 2018. Esure and Direct Line were founded by the British entrepreneur Sir Peter Wood, who pioneered directly selling insurance over the telephone in 1985 with the launch of Direct Line. Esure was set up in 2000 'to offer competitive insurance by harnessing the power of the internet', it says on its website. David McMillan, Esure's chief executive, said: 'This transaction brings together two highly complementary businesses … We look forward to working alongside the Ageas team to build the UK's leading personal lines insurer.' Esure hailed a 'pivotal year with transformation' in 2024, when it increased policies by nearly 3% to 2.1m and raised turnover by 14% to £1.1bn. It swung from a loss of £16.7m in 2023 to a trading profit of £126m. Ageas' UK chief executive, Ant Middle, said: 'Esure is a significant addition to the Ageas UK business and aligns perfectly with our growth strategy. As demand for motor and home insurance grows, Ageas will be perfectly positioned to gain market share.' Analysts at JP Morgan reckon this is as good deal said the deal was good for Ageas. '[It] will substantially increase Ageas's scale in the UK personal lines market, taking into account Ageas's deal to acquire the personal lines business of Saga in 2025. 'It will also accelerate Ageas's position in the important price-comparison website channel. The deal will more than double Ageas's UK property and casualty revenues.' News of the acquisition comes as UK regulators are investigating the high cost of car insurance. After years of hefty price rises, premiums levelled off last year and have been falling in recent months, according to the price-comparison website Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Elsewhere, the RSA Insurance name will disappear, as the 315-year-old company announced plans to adopt the trading name Intact Insurance by the end of this year, to align with its Canadian parent company, Intact Financial Corporation (IFC). RSA, founded as the Sun Fire Office in 1710, was acquired by Intact in 2021. Charles Brindamour, the chief executive of IFC, said: 'The transformation of the UK business since it was acquired by Intact in 2021 has been exceptional. Intact has a global footprint with big aspirations for the future and RSA is already a significant contributor. 'Aligning under the Intact brand is a natural next step in our strategy to strengthen our leading position in the UK, Europe and Ireland.'
The Guardian
28-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Export of endangered eels to Russia ends after UK government ban
Endangered eels caught in British estuaries will no longer be exported to Russia this year after the government banned the trade. In a move that Britain's last remaining eel trader said would end centuries of traditional elvering, a request to dispatch millions of glass eels – young eels that develop into elvers – to a restocking project in Kaliningrad was refused by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Last year, the authorities allowed Peter Wood of UK Glass Eels, who has been exporting glass eels for more than 50 years, to dispatch one tonne of glass eels – representing about 3 million fish. These were caught in spring in the Severn estuary by elver fishers who have worked the area for years. The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is a protected, red-listed species, with the number of elvers migrating into European rivers having declined by 95% since the 1980s. In 2010, the EU banned the trade of European eels outside their natural range in Europe. Since Brexit, it has been impossible for British eel fishers to export glass eels to restocking projects in EU countries, but a loophole made it permissible to catch and export elvers to non-EU destinations in their natural European range if they are used for conservation purposes, such as restocking lakes or rivers. Wood said a ban on eel exports to Russia would stop the traditional fishery on the River Severn because there were no other markets to export to. 'It is absolutely devastating,' said Wood. 'All my team are going to lose their jobs. This will be hundreds of years of heritage and culture gone.' A Defra spokesperson said: 'We have robust rules and laws in place to safeguard protected species, including glass eels, and any applications to export them are rigorously assessed to ensure they are legal and sustainable. 'This application for the export of glass eels has been refused over concerns of significant risks of illegal trading compounded by the current situation in Russia.' More than 55,000 people signed a petition calling for an end to the export of elvers to Russia following an outcry after the Guardian revealed plans to increase the Kaliningrad export amount to five tonnes. Wood said the restocking project in Kaliningrad was a legitimate conservation project and preventing it would also stop his facility's contribution to UK restocking projects. 'Fishermen are very generous. They've provided the glass eels and we provide the facilities to do it. All that is going to come to an end,' he said. Andrew Kerr, chair of the Sustainable Eel Group, said he welcomed the government decision because the focus for eel conservation should be on restocking English and Welsh rivers from the glass eel surplus in the Bristol Channel. 'It's a much better use of the precious natural resource that they should migrate up the Severn than be sent to Russia. This means that the future is conservation elvering for [UK] restocking programmes,' he said. Young elvers enter river systems and spend years developing before migrating to the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean, to reproduce. But no English or Welsh river is close to meeting its 'eel escapement target' – the number of mature silver eels that successfully get out to sea. Removing barriers such as weirs – or building fish passes around them – is one way to help eels, but moving glass eels from estuaries to suitable habitat upriver is another way to boost populations.
Reuters
11-03-2025
- Automotive
- Reuters
Ageas and Allianz explore bid for British insurance group esure, sources say
LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Belgian insurer Ageas ( opens new tab has retained advisors to explore a bid for British motor and home insurer esure, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as part of plans to consolidate the UK personal lines market. Germany's Allianz has also been working on an offer for esure in recent weeks, said two of the people, speaking on condition of anonymity. Esure, owned by private equity firm Bain Capital, could be worth at least 1 billion pounds ($1.31 billion), Reuters previously reported. There will only be one main round of bidding, with a deadline in the next few weeks, the third person said, cautioning that a deal is not guaranteed. Spokespeople for Bain, Ageas and Allianz declined to comment. Esure referred requests for comment to Bain. The UK insurance market has been consolidating, with Britain's Aviva seeking regulatory clearances on its 3.7 billion pound acquisition of Direct Line that was agreed last December. Ageas pursued Direct Line before it was taken over by Aviva and has said it wants to expand in UK general insurance. Esure is smaller than Direct Line and uses the same technology platform as Ageas, which makes the target particularly attractive to Ageas, sources previously told Reuters. For Allianz, buying esure would expand its presence in the UK market, after it bought the general insurance businesses of L&G and LV= in 2019. Allianz is also in exclusive talks to acquire Viridium in a $3 billion plus deal, according to the Wall Street Journal. Allianz declined to comment on the report. Esure, whose products include careful driver brand Sheilas' Wheels, was formed in 2000 by former Direct Line founder Peter Wood. Bain took esure private in a 1.21 billion pound deal in 2018 after the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013.
