The reinsurer Scor will buy back 9 million of its own shares still held by the mutual insurer Covéa (MMA, MAAF and GMF brands) before selling them to BNP Paribas Cardiff, in order to “normalize” its shareholding, according to a press release Wednesday evening.
Scor and Cova had clashed for almost three years after a friendly proposal from the latter to buy out the former, who had flatly rejected it. At the end, a transactional memorandum of understanding was signed in June 2021.
It provided for Cova to grant Scor a firm and irrevocable purchase option on its entire stake in Scor, i.e. 8.8% of the capital, at a price of 28 euros per share.
Its stock price was 28.6 euros on Wednesday evening.
The board of directors of this insurer of insurers, meeting today, authorized the partial exercise of this option, amounting to 9 million shares representing 5.01% of the capital, Scor indicated on Wednesday evening.
The insurer specifies that once the shares are delivered by Cova, it will sell them to BNP Paribas Cardif as part of an off-market transaction, in order to normalize its shareholding.
At the end of December 2022, the second largest shareholder of Scor behind Cova were Assurances du Crdit Mutuel (ACM Vie) with 5.2% of the capital and Amundi with 5.1% of the capital.
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The group published at the beginning of September a strategic plan aiming to grow its economic value by 9% per year until 2026, a figure relating to the sum of shareholders’ equity and expected future profits.
The publication of this plan for the 2024-2026 period was of great importance for the group, whose previous general director had been thrown out at the beginning of the year after barely a year and a half in office, for precisely not having established medium-term objectives.