Constantia Insurance poised for growth through its acquisition by Trustco Group Holdings
Johannesburg – Trustco Holdings (Trustco) announced on 9 December 2019 that it has made an offer to purchase the insurance and related business operations of the Constantia Group (Constantia) from Conduit Capital Limited (Conduit), through its financial services subsidiary Legal Shield Holdings (LSH).
LSH is the flagship Trustco subsidiary, a diversified financial service provider with a client base of more than 280 000 members comprised of individuals and small businesses. LSH also has numerous property developments around Windhoek and has recently applied to the Bank of Namibia to acquire the banking segment of Trustco. At the end of its last reporting period, LSH held assets of 5.8 billion Namibian Dollars (NAD). Trustco also has diamond mining operations in Sierra Leone and Namibia.
Constantia has achieved significant growth in the past two years, also having created innovative solutions in new markets such as medical malpractice. LSH believes that Constantia provides an excellent opportunity to gain access to the life and non-life insurance markets in South Africa.
New opportunities
Volker von Widdern, Chief Executive Officer of Constantia, is excited by this new phase in Constantia’s journey. He says, “There is substantial synergy between the property, banking and insurance operations established by LSH and the selected market opportunities developed by Constantia. Similarly, the products and technologies developed by Constantia have immediate potential in the Namibian and regional markets and create opportunities for new relationships with regional brokers and UMA’s.”
The planned transaction will require approval from the Financial Services Prudential Authority, as well as the JSE and other relevant parties.
Once the transaction is complete, LSH will seek to deploy its considerable assets and financial services resources to enhance Constantia’s balance sheet, regulatory capital and trading models, which will substantially improve Constantia’s growth opportunities.
LSH and Constantia are confident that their new relationship will accelerate the execution of the Constantia vision: “Your trusted partner whose responsive teams deliver innovative risk and insurance solutions in selected markets”.
Constantia and LSH look forward to the ongoing development of special relationships with their partners and suppliers, delivered with passion and service excellence.
