Investor Group Led By Stone Point Capital Submits Binding Offer for the Acquisition of the Ongoing Business of AXA Re
2006年4月13日 - 6:10AM
PRニュース・ワイアー (英語)
GREENWICH, Conn., April 12 /PRNewswire/ -- A consortium of
international investors led by Stone Point Capital LLC submitted a
binding offer on April 7th to acquire the business of AXA Re, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of AXA (NYSE: AXA), in January 2007. The
investor group has formed Paris Re Holdings Limited which will have
an initial capitalization of approximately $1.5 billion to assume
the ongoing business of AXA Re. The current management team of AXA
Re, with Peter Gerhardt as CEO, will lead Paris Re and will
continue the successful business strategy implemented in 2003. In
addition to Trident III, L.P., a fund managed by Stone Point
Capital, other lead investors include affiliates of Hellman &
Friedman LLC, Vestar Capital Partners, Crestview Capital Partners,
Och-Ziff Capital Management, ABN AMRO and New Mountain Capital. AXA
is expected to retain up to a 10% stake in the company. AXA has
agreed to a period of exclusivity with Stone Point Capital and
intends to respond to this binding offer following consultation
with the relevant workers' councils. Stone Point Capital LLC is a
global private equity firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut. Stone
Point Capital, which serves as the manager of the Trident Funds,
has raised more than $6 billion in capital for investments in the
insurance, employee benefits and financial services industries.
Prior to the formation of Stone Point Capital in 2005, the
principals of the firm led the private equity firm MMC Capital,
Inc. Hellman & Friedman LLC is a leading private equity
investment firm with offices in San Francisco, New York and London.
Since its founding in 1984, the firm, through its affiliated funds,
has raised and managed over $8 billion of committed capital and
invested in over 60 companies. Hellman & Friedman has focused
on investing in superior business franchises and as a value-added
partner to management in select industries, including financial
services, media, software, professional services and energy. The
firm has pursued investments in the insurance sector for over a
decade, which include Arch Capital Group Limited (ACGL), GeoVera
Insurance Group, Ltd., MidOcean Limited, Mitchell International,
Inc., and Vertafore, Inc. Its European investments include Formula
One, ProSiebenSat1.AG, Axel Springer, and Mondrian Investment
Partners. Vestar Capital Partners is a leading private equity firm
specializing in management buyouts and growth capital investments.
Vestar's investment strategy is targeted towards companies in the
U.S. and Europe with valuations in the $100 million to $5 billion
range. Since the firm's founding in 1988, Vestar has completed over
50 investments in the U.S. and Europe in companies with a total
value of approximately $17 billion. These companies have varied in
size and geography and span a broad range of industries. The firm's
strategy is to invest behind management teams, family owners or
corporations in a creative, flexible and entrepreneurial way with
the overriding goal to build long-term franchise value. Vestar
currently manages funds totaling approximately $7 billion and has
offices in New York City, Denver, Boston, Paris and Milan. More
information about Vestar is available at
http://www.vestarcapital.com/. Crestview Capital Partners is a $1.4
billion private equity fund. The firm was founded in 2004 by a
group of Goldman Sachs partners and colleagues who had served in
leadership roles in the firm's private equity business and senior
management. Crestview's founding partners have invested nearly $6
billion in a wide range of industries in North America and Europe.
Crestview's investors include primarily entrepreneurs, families,
and endowments, as well as the partners of the firm. Och-Ziff
Capital Management Group, founded in 1994 by Daniel Och, is a
global institutional asset management firm, with offices in the
U.S., London, and Hong Kong, managing in excess of $16 billion.
Och-Ziff has over $2 billion currently invested in Global Private
Equity, which encompasses various industries and geographies. The
firm seeks to achieve consistent, positive absolute returns that
are not correlated with the equity market indices through
investments in securities of many asset classes. ABN AMRO is a
leading financial institution with assets of euro 880 billion and
shareholders' equity of euro 22 billion as of December 31, 2005.
ABN AMRO's Merchant Banking Group makes non-strategic private
equity investments in the financial services sector using ABN
AMRO's balance sheet capital. Its private equity investment
portfolio currently includes significant minority investments in
Korea Exchange Bank in South Korea, NIB Capital in The Netherlands,
GFKL Financial Services in Germany and Bluestone Mortgages in
Australia. New Mountain Capital manages private equity and public
equity capital with aggregate assets under management totaling more
than $3.0 billion. New Mountain is a generalist firm but has
developed particular competitive advantages in the most attractive
sectors of education, health care, business services, IT services,
media, software, insurance, consumer products, water and power. New
Mountain's insurance experience includes a recent investment in
Validus Re, a newly formed Bermuda-based property & casualty
reinsurance company. Contact Information: Charles A. Davis Stone
Point Capital LLC (203) 862-2900 DATASOURCE: Stone Point Capital
LLC CONTACT: Charles A. Davis, Stone Point Capital LLC,
+1-203-862-2900 Web site: http://www.vestarcapital.com/
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