Beazley rejects Zurich’s takeover bid which ‘undervalues’ agency at £7.7bn

Beazley has rejected a takeover bid by Zurich Insurance, saying it undervalues the firm and its prospects.

The Swiss insurance giant lodged a 1280p a share offer for the FTSE 100-listed company on Tuesday, after Beazley rejected a lower bid of 1230p a share last week.

In a statement to investors, Beazley said the bid ‘materially undervalues Beazley and its longer-term prospects as an independent company.’

It was the fifth offer Zurich had made for the Lloyd’s of London insurer since an initial takeover approach a year ago, which valued the company at 1315p per share.

Beazley said it had engaged with Zurich ‘appropriately’ which included providing ‘limited due diligence information in a good faith effort to come to a shared understanding of value.’

Zurich Insurance has made five takeover bids for Beazley, each of them rejected

In an interview with the Financial Times earlier this week, Zurich boss Mario Greco said ‘it was time to go public and eventually’ let Beazley shareholders ‘say what they think’.

Shares in Beazley fell by as much as 4.6 per cent, leading the FTSE 100‘s fallers, before settling to trade down 1.25 per cent at 1,109 points.

Zurich is the latest company to go public with a takeover offer before securing an agreement with the board first. FitzWalter Capital has called on shareholders in Auction Technology Group to engage after 12 rejected bids.

In an update to the market, Beazley said: ‘The board is very confident in Beazley’s standalone prospects as a publicly listed company and in the attractiveness of Beazley’s business model fundamentals and believes that Beazley is uniquely positioned within the global insurance market to maximise long-term shareholder value and realise the full potential of its specialty platform.’

Beazley, which was set up in 1986 and joined the stock market in 2002, is based in London and has operations in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia.