Philamlife acquires 51% of Ayala Life

MANILA, Philippines - The country’s largest life insurer The Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philamlife) will acquire more than half of the insurance subsidiary of Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI).

Through a bancassurance joint venture, Philamlife will have a 51-percent stake in Ayala Life Assurance Inc., which is the    sixth largest life insurance company in the country. 

Newly appointed Philamlife president and chief executive officer (CEO) Trevor Bull said the partnership is a result of its strategy to focus on the core life insurance and wealth management business.

“This is an exciting and positive development that will significantly increase our distribution footprint and offer a substantially wider selection of quality life insurance products to BPI’s customers, which are keys to success under the growing popularity of bancassurance in the region,” Bull said.

BPI and Ayala Life are members of the Ayala Group of Companies. Philamlife is a subsidiary of the AIA, an offshoot of the American International Group (AIG).

Terms of the deal remained undisclosed including the name of the joint venture and the amount needed to acquire the 51-percent stake in Ayala Life.

Upbeat on the partnership, BPI president and CEO Aurelio Montinola III said Philamlife would access the bank’s customer base for life insurance products while the bank can access the insurer’s customers for banking products. “We always look forward for quality partners. We are excited about the prospects of this partnership with Philamlife. We believe that there are significant cross selling opportunities on both sides,” Montinola said.

BPI Capital and ING acted as financial advisors to BPI while Deutsche Bank acted as sole financial advisor to Philamlife and American International Assurance (AIA) for this transaction.

Philamlife has an existing bancassurance joint venture with Equitable PCI Bank, which was recognized by Banco de Oro Unibank Inc. (BDO) when it acquired Equitable PCI Bank in 2007.

BDO likewise has an existing contract with Generali Pilipinas, another life insurance company. BDO owns 40-percent of Generali Pilipinas.

Philamlife has more than a million individual and corporate policyholders for various financial needs including income protection, retirement, education, investment, health, personal accident, group life and credit life.