Ameritas Acacia Mutual Holding Company, Lincoln, Neb., has agreed to acquire Union Central Life Insurance Company, Cincinnati, through a merger.[@@]
Ameritas Acacia is a mutual holding company with subsidiaries, Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. and Acacia Life Insurance Company, that are strong players in the group dental, group vision and annuity markets. It also owns a Falls Church, Va., savings bank and has $7.9 billion in assets.
Union Central, a company founded in 1867, has $7 billion in assets and a strong reputation in the markets for retirement plans and individual life and disability products.
Top executives at both companies say they agreed to the merger because they believe a bigger company will have an easier time competing with the financial services giants.
"Together, we can offer a more complementary and complete portfolio of products and services," Union Central Chairman John Jacobs says in a statement about the deal.
Although the company boards have approved the deal, the deal is subject to approval by Ohio and Nebraska insurance regulators as well as Union Central policyholder-owners and the policyholder-owners of the Ameritas Acacia mutual insurance company units. The companies hope to complete the deal by the end of the year.
Merger plans call for the Ameritas Acacia mutual holding company to change its name to UNIFI Mutual Holding Company and end up controlling Ameritas Life, Acacia Life and Union Central.
The headquarters would be in Lincoln, and Lawrence Arth, chairman of Ameritas Acacia, would be chairman of UNIFI. Jacobs would be the president and chief operating officer.
The 3 mutuals would continue to operate separately, but combining back-office operations and other operations could cut about $20 million in annual expenses, according to a comment on the deal issued by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, New York.
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