Zurich Insurance Group has made a 7.67 billion pound ($10.3 billion) offer for speciality insurer Beazley, going public with an improved bid that sent shares in the British company up 40 per cent on Monday.
Europe's second-largest insurer by market value announced the proposal after Beazley rejected several earlier approaches, details of which had not previously been disclosed.
London-listed Beazley, which on Friday rejected a January 4 proposal that it said significantly undervalued its business, said it had yet to consider Zurich's latest offer.
Buying Beazley would give Zurich a bigger foothold in speciality insurance, covering areas such as cyber, marine, aviation and space, and fine art, while also expanding in Britain at a time when its exposure to the US and the weak dollar have weighed on its performance and shares.
Zurich told investors in November it planned to scale up in speciality insurance, and this month it launched a London-based global unit for the business. Zurich's latest proposal of 1,280 pence per share values Beazley at about 7.67 billion pounds, according to Reuters calculations, representing a 56 per cent premium to Beazley's last closing price of 820 pence.
Zurich said it would fund the bid with cash, new debt and an equity placing. CEO Mario Greco told the Financial Times on Monday that Zurich had made five attempts in the past year to buy Beazley. The most recent previous offer was for 1,230 pence per share, Beazley and Zurich said.
Goldman Sachs, Lazard and UBS are advising Zurich, sources close to the matter said. Beazley said it was being advised by JPMorgan and Barclays.
Zurich said buying Beazley would combine two complementary businesses, leveraging Beazley's strength in speciality insurance and its presence at the Lloyd's of London marketplace.
A deal would be in line with the strategic priorities outlined at Zurich's Investor Day on November 18, the Swiss company said. Zurich's global property and casualty business wrote about $47 billion in gross premiums in 2024, of which only $5 billion came from the UK. Zurich's shares have risen just eight per cent since early 2025, pressured by its US exposure and the weak dollar.
Beazley's shares had also underperformed as of Friday's close, with the stock little changed over the previous 12 months against a 20 per cent gain in the FTSE 100.
Beazley has stated that it participates in the insurance of approximately 20 per cent of the world’s ocean-going tonnage.
(Reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Charlie Conchie in London. Additional reporting by Raechel Thankam Job and Rishab Shaju in Bengaluru. Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Mark Potter)