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January 27, 2021 at 09:43 AM
The Blackstone Group Inc. recently hired Michael Hovey to be the senior managing director in charge of its insurance deals unit.
The New York-based investment management company confirmed its interest in insurance deals Tuesday, by having entities it manages agree to pay $2.8 billion to buy Allstate Life Insurance Company from The Allstate Corp.
(Related: 7 Things Annuity Issuers Are Saying Now)
The companies expect to close on the deal sometime between June 30 and Dec. 31, according to Allstate.
Gilles Dellaert, the current global head of the Blackstone Insurance Solutions unit, said in a statement that ”we believe our team’s extensive experience in the insurance sector and world-class asset origination capabilities will deliver significant benefits to policyholders and investors over the long term.”
Blackstone
Blackstone now has about $584 billion in assets under management. The company began making a big push into life insurance dealmaking in 2017, when it agreed to acquire Fidelity & Guaranty Life from HRG Group Inc.
Then the company hired Chris Blunt, the former president of New York Life Investments Group, to be the chief executive officer of a new Blackstone Insurance Solutions unit. The company also hired Michael McRaith, the first director of the Federal Insurance Office, to be a managing director at the unit.
Fidelity National Financial Inc., a title insurer based in Jacksonville, Florida, invested in the effort to acquire F&G. Fidelity Nation ended up buying full control over F&G in June 2020.
Allstate Life
The Allstate Life unit was founded in 1957 and has its official state of domicile in Illinois.
From 2015 through 2019, it began shifting responsibility for issuance of new products to a sister company, Allstate Assurance Company, according to a 2019 financial statement available through a California Department of Insurance database.
The company has written fixed and interest-sensitive life and annuity products, and variable products. Most of the variable annuity business is reinsured. The company also has distributed other types of products, such as disability insurance and long-term care insurance, that were written by other insurers.
The company reported $467 million in net income for 2019 on $23 billion in reserves, according to Allstate.
