Fidelity National Closes on Fidelity & Guaranty Life

Life and Annuity Strategy

F&G has been writing non-variable indexed annuities, traditional fixed-rate annuities, immediate annuities, and indexed universal life insurance.

F&G and its parent have not yet talked about any specific product changes or strategies.

But Chris Blunt, the chief executive officer of F&G, also talked about F&G getting bigger.

“We believe that, under the ownership and guidance of FNF, we will be able to power growth in our core channels, jump start our expansion into new channels, and accelerate our path towards higher ratings,” Blunt said in a comment included in the deal completion announcement. “All of this will allow us to provide terrific career opportunities for our team members, and enable us to execute on our mission to help more people turn their aspirations into reality”

The Advisors

BofA Securities and Trasimene Capital Management were advisors to an FNF special committee, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP was the special committee’s legal advisor, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP was Fidelity National’s legal advisor.

Credit Suisse was F&G’s financial advisor, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP was F&G’s legal advisor.served as legal advisor to F&G. Houlihan Lokey was the financial advisor to an F&G special committee, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP was the committee’s legal advisor.

Fidelity National, F&G, and the companies’ financial and legal advisors completed the deal while many of the people involved with structuring the deal were having to work from home, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deal documents do not talk about how the people who worked on the deal coped with the shelter-in-place rules, but FGL shareholders approved the deal last week via an entirely digital meeting.

Fidelity National says, in a registration statement related to the deal, that the outbreak of pandemic disease is one of the factors that could hurt its results.

“The occurrence of any pandemic disease, natural disaster, terrorist attack or any other catastrophic event that results in FNF’s workforce being unable to be physically located at one of FNF’s facilities could result in lengthy interruptions in FNF’s service,” the company warns.

“Some of FNF’s operational systems are not fully redundant, and FNF’s disaster recovery and business continuity planning cannot account for all eventualities,” Fidelity National says.

— Read Publicly Traded Life and Annuity Issuers Prepare to Talk About COVID-19 With Investors, on ThinkAdvisor.

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