Desjardins Group is expanding in the damage insurance sector with the acquisition more quickly than expected of the rest of the Prince Edward Island Insurance Company that it did not yet own .
Desjardins acquired 27.5% of this Charlottetown insurer last year when the company closed its capital, then listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The operation gave the company a market value of approximately $61 million.
Managers and other investors retained a majority of the shares at the end of the operation and Desjardins paid 16.7 million for its minority stake.
Desjardins announced at the time of the transaction last year its intention to acquire all of the shares of the maritime insurer over a period of 3 to 5 years.
Desjardins chose to bring forward its purchase option, a decision thereby increasing the volume of premiums subscribed by Desjardins to more than $7 billion.
The Lévis financial cooperative began 2024 with a premium volume of $6.9 billion and the Prince Edward Island Insurance Company added a volume of $130 million.
This acquisition allows Desjardins to add the home, automobile and business insurance activities of the Prince Edward Island Insurance Company to its operations.
Founded in 1998, the Prince Edward Island Insurance Company has approximately one hundred employees. It provides its insurance products exclusively through a network of independent brokers, a complement to Desjardins’ direct approach and its network of exclusive agents.
Citing “strategic reasons”, the president and chief operating officer of Desjardins General Insurance Group, Valérie Lavoie, did not wish to reveal how much Desjardins is paying for the stake that she did not hold. However, it can be estimated in tens of millions.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY DESJARDINS
Valérie Lavoie, President and Chief Operating Officer of Desjardins General Insurance Group
“This transaction allows us to accelerate our growth in commercial insurance and take market share to become bigger more quickly in order to better meet the needs of our members and entrepreneur clients,” said Valérie Lavoie in an interview.
“We did business with clients directly and we had a network of exclusive agents outside Quebec. We are now adding a brokerage insurer which gives us broader market access. »
Valérie Lavoie specifies that the Prince Edward Island Insurance Company has clients mainly in three maritime provinces, Quebec and Ontario.
This is Desjardins’ first acquisition in damage insurance since purchasing the Canadian activities of the State Farm mutual insurance company nine years ago.
Desjardins ranks third in the country in damage insurance, behind Intact and Aviva.
The big boss of the Desjardins Movement, Guy Cormier, has wanted since his arrival at the helm of the financial institution eight years ago for the organization to expand across the country in damage insurance, personal insurance and wealth management. .
Two years ago, Desjardins purchased the wealth management activities belonging to Guardian Capital Group, a Toronto-based financial services provider, for $750 million.