Legal & General share price: Company sells Egyptian JV for $97.5 million

Legal & General Group Plc (LON:LGEN) has announced the sale of an Egyptian joint venture called the Commercial International Life Insurance Company (CIL), in which it owns a 55-percent stake. The remaining 45-percent stake is owned by Commercial International Bank. In a statement to the London Stock Exchange today, the UK insurer said that the business will be acquired by French banking and finance services firm AXA for around $97.5 (£62.8m) million.

The sale marks Legal & General’s exit from Egypt after 17 years. Founded in 1998, CIL has 90,000 individual insurance policies, and provides retirement benefits group life and credit life insurance for around 350,000 customers. Last year, the firm was ranked third in the Egyptian life insurance market for new written retail problems.
Legal & General’s managing director for emerging markets, Simon Burke, commented: “Legal & General is delighted to have been part of the success of CIL for the past 17 years, and pleased to see the positive impact that life insurance has delivered to its Egyptian customers.Legal & General’s strategy of building scalable, customer focussed, long-term businesses has been achieved in Egypt, and now is the right time to hand the business over.”
In its statement, Legal & General said that the deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, was expected to take place by the end of the year.
In today’s trading, Legal & General shares were up 0.6 percent at 265.20p, as of 11:46 BST. The stock has risen 6.7 percent since the start of the year, boosting the company’s market capitalisation to £15.8 billion.
The 17 analysts offering 12 month price targets for Legal & General have a median target of 290.00p, with a high estimate of 320.00p and a low estimate of 180.00p.
As of 13:24 BST, Monday, 13 July, Legal & General Group Plc share price is 266.90p.