ANZ offloads Kiwi health insurer for $22.6 million

ANZ Bank has offloaded its NZ medical insurance book to NIB for $22.6 million as the lender offloads non-core assets.

25/10/2010 BUSINESS: The Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ) logo is displayed on a bank branch in ...

ANZ Bank has offloaded its New Zealand medical insurance book to NIB Holdings for $22.6 million in a sell-off of non-core assets.

The business, which has about 20,000 medical insurance policies covering 44,000 people, sits in One­Path Life, ANZ’s NZ subsi­diary.

“Medical insurance is a specialist business and this sale will enable us to focus on our core life insurance business with minimal impact on existing policyholders,” said ANZ Wealth NZ managing director John Body.

ANZ said the transaction was not material to the bank and subject to Reserve Bank of NZ approval.

Major banks have been focusing on their priority businesses amid soft economic growth and changing regulations.

Last week, ANZ sold its Esanda finance portfolio to Macquarie Group that comprised $7.8 billion of assets, freeing up about $8bn of funding capacity and generating a $100m profit.

NIB said the acquisition of NZ’s fifth-largest health insurer would immediately increase its earnings per share, excluding $300,000 in one-off transaction costs and amortisation of acquisition-related identifiable intangibles, forecast to be $1m.

NIB’s managing director, Mark Fitzgibbon, said the purchase was consistent with its strategy to grow in the NZ health insurance market as well as its overall share, noting the 2012 acquisition of Tower NZ’s medical insurance business. “The purchase of OnePath Life NZ’s medical insurance business meets our strict investment criteria, and importantly provides us with additional scope to grow and leverage our existing NZ operations.”