Aon sells off US retirement enterprise in pursuit of WTW merger clearance
Aon has agreed to sell its US annuity business to Aquiline and its Aon Retiree Health Exchange business to Alight for approximately $ 1.4 billion. It is the most recent divestment as part of Aon’s offer to remove antitrust obstacles to its merger with Willis Towers Watson (WTW), a competing human resources, risk advisory and insurance brokerage firm.
Aquiline Capital Partners will acquire approximately 1,000 employees in Aon’s US pension advisory, pension administration and US international pension advisory businesses, as well as several technology tools and solutions.
Aquiline is a New York and London based private investment company that has previously invested in numerous pension companies. The company has $ 6.5 billion in assets under management.
“Aquiline’s extensive retirement and investing experience enables us to build on the strong business that Aon has built,” said Jeff Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of Aquiline. “We look forward to working closely with clients, management and colleagues in Aon’s US repurchase business to create further value for all stakeholders.”
Meanwhile, Alight is taking over Aon Retiree Health Exchange, an individual market platform for employers and their retirees. Alight is a large provider of digital health and wellness solutions based in Illinois with 15,000 employees worldwide.
“These agreements accelerate our momentum to complete our proposed combination with Willis Towers Watson,” said Greg Case, CEO of Aon. “These are very capable teams who have shown exceptional commitment to our clients and our firm. I would like to acknowledge their contributions and reiterate that we are confident they will have similar opportunities with Aquiline and Alight.”
WTW announced a $ 3.57 billion deal with Gallagher last month to sell select reinsurance, specialty and retail brokerage businesses. In May, Aon sold its German investment and pension business, which consists of 350 employees in five offices, to Lane Clark & Peacock, a UK company pension consultancy.
Aon and WTW together sold $ 2.3 billion in sales in 2020 to please regulators in Europe, the US and elsewhere. The divestments also made more than 7,350 employees redundant. An unchanged merger would have created a company with nearly 100,000 employees and annual sales of $ 20 billion.
According to a Reuters report based on anonymous sources, the European Commission is expected to approve Aon’s $ 30 billion acquisition of WTW before the end of June.
