September 12 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Euroins Insurance Group (EIG) said on Wednesday that it has received regulatory approval to acquire a majority stake in Georgian insurer IC Group for an undisclosed price.
The deal, which is yet to be finalised, envisages increasing the capital of IC Group, EIG said in a filing to the Bulgarian Stock Exchange.
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IC Group, which employs over 100 people, is expected to grow its premium income by 45% year-on-year to 5.4 million euro ($6.3 million) in 2018, according to the filing.
EIG expects strong growth of the insurance sector in Georgia following regulatory changes which plan to make motor third party liability insurance mandatory by the end of the year. Georgia's insurance market registered a 12.3% increase in premium income in 2017, EIG said.
The deal is part of EIG's strategy for expansion of its operations in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
EIG is also expecting to close the acquisition of Ukrainian travel insurance company ERV from Germany's ERGO by the end of September.
Sofia-based EIG, a unit of financial and insurance group Eurohold Bulgaria [BUL:4EH], has operations in eight European countries and has subsidiaries in four - Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia and Ukraine.
($ = 0.8622 euro)