Nordea's new life insurance company in Poland takes shape
Nordea's new life insurance company in Poland takes shape Nordea has acquired 95% of Heros Life, a Polish life insurance company, and appointed new top management. Plans call for renaming the Polish company, Nordea Zycie, (Nordea Life), pending government approval. The Polish authorities have now approved the acquisition of the Polish life insurance company Heros Life by Nordea's insurance group made last December. The acquisition of 95% of Heros Life has thus been made with effect from 30 March 2001. Subsequently, at the company's annual general meeting on 19 April, it was decided to change the company's name to Nordea Zycie (Nordea life). This requires new formal approval from the Polish ministry of finance. At the same time, Ib Mardahl-Hansen, head of Life Insurance and Pensions in Nordea, joined the company's board of directors as chairman, and Seppo Ilvessalo, head of Merita Life, was appointed deputy chairman. Mikko Lehto, who has worked with life insurance in Poland for the past two years for Tryg-Baltica, including the setting up of Energo-Zycie, has joined Heros Life's executive management. The new Board of Directors of Heros Life has held its first meeting, and the future focus will be on increasing distribution power, eg through establishing the sale of insurance through the two Nordea-owned banks in Poland, Bank Komunalny and BWP Unibank. In addition, the organisation will be integrated with the branch network of Nordea's Polish general insurance company, Energo-Asekuracja, to be renamed Nordea Ubezpieczenia. With Energo-Asekuracja (Nordea Ubezpieczenia), the two banks and Heros Life (Nordea Zycie), Nordea has more than 1,200 employees in Poland. Heros Life was established in 1994 and is the tenth-largest life insurance company in Poland of a total of 35. Heros Life has 15 branches and 29 sales offices nation-wide, more than 68,000 customers and 224 employees. For further information: Ivar Sperling, Managing Director, Tryg-Baltica International, +45 44 20 32 00 Erik Evrén, Group Media Relations, +46 8 614 8611 ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/05/07/20010507BIT00390/bit0002.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/05/07/20010507BIT00390/bit0002.pdf