(Bloomberg) -- RSA Insurance Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester said the company will attract bids from other suitors after Zurich Insurance Group AG abandoned its 5.6 billion-pound ($8.7 billion) offer for the British insurer.
“I am sure that this company will get other approaches in the future because it’s a consolidating industry and it’s an attractive company, but we are not looking for approaches and we are not talking to anyone else as we speak,” Hester said in a telephone interview Monday from London.
Hester, hired in 2014 to help the insurer recover from three consecutive profit warnings and an accounting scandal in Ireland, said RSA hadn’t received any other approaches since Zurich first registered its interest for the company in July.
The shares tumbled 21 percent on Monday, erasing more than 1 billion pounds in market value after Switzerland’s largest insurer was forced to abandon the offer. Zurich said that it would report a $200 million loss in general insurance unit, its biggest business.
“I was surprised,” Hester said. “As far as we were concerned, until last night everything was on course. We knew that the due diligence had gone well and that nothing had come out that was alarming. It was as much as a surprise to us as it was to the market.”
The CEO said that in the absence of another offer it was back to plan A for the insurer to progress with the turnaround that had been disrupted since Zurich talks first emerged. His strategy has included a string of asset disposals.
Analysts including Shore Capital’s Eamonn Flanagan and Berenberg’s Sami Taipalus said another offer for the insurer couldn’t be ruled out with the shares more attractive since Zurich walked away.
The stock had surged by the most in almost two decades amid speculation that larger rivals, including Allianz SE, Europe’s biggest insurer, and France’s Axa SA may also bid for the British insurer.
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