Private equity firm Cinven has reached an agreement to buy life insurance and long term savings provider International Financial Group (IFGL), the owner of RL360 and Friends Provident International.
International Financial Group has £19bn of assets under administration and also operates the Ardan International brands. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
IFGL was established in October 2013 to support the management buyout of RL360 from Royal London. Since then it acquired Clerical Medical International in 2015, Ardan International in 2016 and Friends Provident International Limited from Aviva in 2020.
Cinven has been an active investor in the UK financial services sector over the last decade.
It acquired insurer Guardian from Aegon in November 2011 for £275m before adding Ark Life and Phoenix to it and then selling the business to Admin Re for £1.6bn. And it now owns wealth management platform True Potential having completed the purchase at the start of the year.
Luigi Sbrozzi, partner at Cinven, said the firm was delighted to be investing in IFGL.
“IFGL is an established insurer with a strong market position. It has a large back book, which sits alongside an established new business franchise that is well diversified geographically,” he said.
“The Cinven team knows the market well through its previous life insurance investments, including Guardian in the UK and Viridium in Germany, and has a strong track record of working with companies in the sector to achieve strong growth, in particular, through buy-and-build as well as further product development and internationalisation.”
David Kneeshaw, group CEO at International Financial Group, added: “This investment by Cinven will accelerate the group’s ambitious plans for growth.
“Cinven shares our vision for the future and we are now ideally placed to expand significantly through both organic and new market growth and through further M&A activity.
“We now look ahead to what will be a hugely exciting new period for IFGL.”