Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. has struck its largest-ever deal to buy an international specialty insurance company, reinvigorated by investment opportunity driven by political change in the United States.
Prem Watsa, founder and CEO of Fairfax, said Monday that the $4.9-billion (U.S.) cash-and-stock bid to buy Zug, Switzerland-based Allied World Assurance Company Holdings AG would be "transformative" for his company, adding that this is the best deal Fairfax had ever struck.
Buying Allied World is the latest in a string of recent acquisitions in the insurance and reinsurance space for the Toronto-based insurance and investment firm, building on its stable of international companies. The most recent acquisition came in the fall when Fairfax bought Latin American and Eastern European operations from restructuring insurer American International Group Inc. – one of many companies adjusting to tighter regulations, low interest rates and market unsteadiness, as well as facing pressure from its shareholders. Story
DAILY DEALS
Ottawa tech stalwart Mitel Networks Corp. has abandoned its strategy to become a player in the high-growth mobile communications space, divesting at a loss a mobile software firm it bought less than two years ago. Story
Biotech plays are back in vogue, big time. Thomson Reuters data show that venture capitalists had invested $932-million in Canadian life-science firms so far in 2016, the most on record in a single year and 78 per cent higher than all of 2015. Story
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Andrew Willis on how Canada's independent investment banks are bogarting the legal and lucrative medical marijuana market. Story
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