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Cinven has sold German life insurance group Viridium to a consortium including Allianz, BlackRock and Japan’s T&D Holdings in a €3.5bn deal, a year after the business faced scrutiny from regulators because of its private equity ownership.
The British buyout group will exit its majority investment in the insurance consolidator in a transaction that values Viridium at €3.5bn including debt. Viridium’s other backers, Generali Financial Holdings and Hannover Re, will remain invested, while Japanese insurance group T&D Holdings will hold the largest share.
Allianz will hold about 25 per cent and Hannover Re will reduce its stake from 20 per cent to about 10 per cent, according to people familiar with the matter.
The sale of Viridium comes a year after its planned purchase of a $20bn life insurance book from Zurich collapsed against a backdrop of increased regulatory scrutiny of private equity ownership of such companies.
The company said at the time that “considerations relating to Viridium’s current ownership structure” were the reasons for abandoning the deal.
People briefed on that deal said Germany’s financial watchdog BaFin had been closely watching events in Italy, where Eurovita — another life insurer majority-owned through Cinven funds — was taken into special administration in 2023 following a capital shortfall.
The sale to Allianz, BlackRock and T&D would provide Viridium with “an excellent foundation for continued growth”, said Bruno Schick of Cinven, adding that his firm was “proud to have built Viridium from the ground up”.
Cinven bought what was then Heidelberger Leben from Lloyds Banking Group for about €300mn more than a decade ago, as private capital firms swept into the life insurance sector after the financial crisis.
At the time the insurance group had about €5bn in assets under management and 600,000 policies. Under Cinven’s ownership it bought businesses including Skandia and Entis, and now manages €67bn in assets with 3.4mn policies.
Viridium was now “capable of growth again”, its chief executive Tilo Dresig said, eyeing “very big opportunities” for acquisitions in Germany as well as continental Europe, notably France.
The sale, which is subject to regulatory and merger-control approvals, is expected to close in the second half of 2025.
