TMCnet News

A.M.BestTV: Mergers and Acquisitions Pick Up Speed in the Middle East
[August 05, 2015]

A.M.BestTV: Mergers and Acquisitions Pick Up Speed in the Middle East


In this third of five "First Monday" episodes, A.M. Best Senior Financial Analyst Salman Siddiqui discusses how the Middle East is ripe for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as insurers look to broaden their profiles and maintain market positions. Click on http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=fmmiddleeast815 to view the video program.

The remaining "First Monday' episodes will focus on how insurers have increased their overall risks and reduced their liquidity in investments and how fluctuating oil prices are hampering Nigeria's insurance market. "First Monday" is A.M. Best's monthly program featuring commentary by the company's leading analysts.

Medium size players in the Middle East are trying to maintain their market positions and smaller ones are struggling with profitability due to high expenses. Recently, Middle Eastern insurers have strengthened their profiles through acquisitions and by increasing their participation in selective companies.

"The two key drivers of M&A activities are fragmentation of the market and regulation in the region," said Siddiqui. "Markets across the Middle East are heavily fragmented with a large number of players competing for a small amount of premiums. The top five companies almost always dominate the market, while the smaller player struggle to build their top line and achieve economies of scale. The solution for fragmentation and regulation is for the smaller companies to combine and build a larger company, which would enhance these smaller companies' business profiles and allow them to achieve top line cost efficiencies."

Recent episodes of A.M.BestTV include:

  • Homeowners Insurers Tap Predictive Analytics: Senior Financial Analyst Maurice Thomas discusses how U.S. homeowners isurers are increasingly harnessing advanced predictive models to smooth operating volatility in their line of business: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=fmhomeowners815.
  • 'First Monday': Rated U.S. Captives Show Some Stress in 2014: Assistant Vice President Steven Chirico said that despite U.S. captive insurers continuing to outperform the commercial insurance sector, industry results are showing some decay: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=fmcaptives815.
  • How Katrina Changed Today's Insurance Industry: Hurricane Katrina has brought to insurance new understandings and ways of dealing with catastrophe risks and complex losses 10 years after it devastated Louisiana: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=katrina715.
  • Analytics Continue to Transform Insurance Industry: How big data and analytics continue to play an ever increasing and important role in the insurance industry. Two just released industry reports from Novarica and Capgemini (News - Alert) explore how insurers are looking to harness data across all facets of business: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=bigdata715.



A.M.BestTV covers exclusive A.M. Best information and reports, targeted topics and key developments in the (re)insurance industry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sign up for alerts of episodes at http://www.ambest.com/multimedia/ambtvsignup.html. View A.M.BestTV episodes at http://www.ambest.tv.

A.M. Best Company is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.


Copyright © 2015 by A.M. Best Company, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.


[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]