Aegon Fortifies Romanian Operations

Aegon N.V. ( AEG - Snapshot Report ) will acquire the Romanian life insurance and pension facility of Eureko, a fully owned subsidiary of Achmea. Achmea is a financial services provider, mainly of insurance. The deal is expected to culminate in the latter half of 2013, subject to regulatory approval.

This acquisition is aimed at intensifying Aegon’s existing business in the Central and Eastern European region. Aegon has operations in Romania, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Turkey. Furthermore, the company forayed into Ukraine by acquiring a 100% stake in Fidem Life, the fifth largest life insurance company in Ukraine.

The most recent acquisition will empower Aegon to consolidate Eureko's Romanian life insurance and pension fund business into Aegon Romania operations. It is expected that the company operations will be facilitated by the fact that it will have approximately 650,000 pension fund members. Hence, consequent to the acquisition Aegon Romania will develop into the nation’s third largest pension provider and will be counted among the ten largest life insurance providers in the country.

Management expects the burgeoning necessities for life insurance and pension related products and services among the inhabitants of Romania as well as Central and Eastern Europe to inspire Aegon to come up with customer-satisfactory long-term financial solutions. In turn, this will help Aegon to enhance its exposure to prospective clients and also strengthen its prevailing foothold in the country.

In order to expand its operations, the company engages in a number of strategic liaisons. Preceding this deal last December, Aegon announced a strategic alliance with Spain’s largest financial group Banco Santander, for a period of 25 years. As part of the alliance, Aegon will acquire 51% stake in both a life and a non-life insurance company for EUR 220 million.

Other health insurance majors have also been working to improve the quality of care and service provided to the customers along with lowering healthcare costs and improving overall value. Health insuring giant, CIGNA Corp. ( CI - Analyst Report ) , recently announced that it is going to launch another Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative in partnership with Orlando Health Physician Partners.

Aegon carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Insurers like ING GROEP-ADR ( ING - Snapshot Report ) and The AXA Group ( AXAHY ) carry favorable Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and are worth noting.