Telford-based ReAssure to float on stock market

ReAssure employs 2,500 across five sites in the UK and is one of the largest employers in Telford.

It moved to the town to its purpose-built Windsor House in Telford Town Centre as Windsor Life Assurance in 1987.

The business had started in 1963 as The Occidental Life Insurance Company. In 2011 it was re-branded as ReAssure.

It is now part of reinsurer Swiss Re and the initial public offering would see Swiss Re selling around 25 per cent of shares in the business to take its holding below 50 per cent.

ReAssure buys and administers closed books of business from other companies and has more than 4.3m policies and looks after investments of more than £68.7 billion for its customers.

It is now the sixth largest life insurance group in the UK.

ReAssure said it is "well positioned" to benefit from the "significant" closed-book market opportunities in the UK and Europe. Since 2012, the company has completed four acquisitions, seeing a 2.6mn increase of policies and adding £44.9bn of assets across life and pension insurance.

Chairman Archie Kane said: "Today's announcement marks a milestone in our corporate development. ReAssure is a scale player with a proven track record. We have developed a valuable franchise with the potential for significant future growth in the UK closed book markets. Our focused business model and highly-experienced management team put us in a powerful position to deliver attractive returns."

Chief executive Mark Hodges said: "ReAssure has been highly successful, as part of one of the world's largest reinsurance companies. Today I am delighted we are taking the next and natural step for this business, exploring a potential IPO. We believe this will underpin attractive returns to shareholders. We see growth opportunities through further consolidation of closed life and pension books in the UK. A potential IPO would provide us with additional flexibility to take advantage of the opportunities we see."

ReAssuret bought Legal and General’s closed mature savings business last year, which added 1m policies. In 2016 it took over Guardian Group.

It has told potential investors that it expects to pay a dividend of £265m each year.

The IPO registration document for the ReAssure Group share offering was due to be filed yesterday, pending the approval of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority

An IPO provides a way to bring fresh capital into the business, provideworking capital to put into new transactions and grow its UK life insurance book.

Japanese insurance group MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings currently owns the other 25 per cent of ReAssure. It bought its stake from Swiss Re last year.

Swiss Re said ReAssure has been re-organised into a standalone group in preparation for the IPO.