Lumley to be Aussie by end of June

Lumley Lifewill become a fully owned Australian entity by the end of the month after Wesfarmers, one of Australia’s largest public companies, revealed it will conclude the purchase of the insurer’s UK parent company Edward Lumley Holdings (ELH) by the end of June.

Wesfarmers finance director Richard Goyder says the deal, expected to involve the Perth-based firm acquiring all ELH shares for approximately $320 million, should be wrapped up next week.

“We’re still in negotiations and the focus is really on that, though we expect the deal to be finalised by month end,” says Goyder.

“We’ve already said that we’ll market the businesses as they are, but we’ll certainly be reviewing the businesses after the deal is signed,” Goyder adds.

UK-based Edward Lumley chairman Anthony Chrichton-Brown was unavailable for comment.

However, in a statement the group claimed that Wesfarmers would “operate the Lumley businesses in parallel with the existing general insurance business of Wesfarmers Federation Insurance [and that] the group’s focus on intermediary distribution was seen as highly complementary to the direct distribution strategy of WFI”.

According to Wesfarmers managing director Michael Chaney, WFI’s direct distribution model was highly complementary to the broker distribution model adopted by Lumley.

The proposed deal will see the ELH group restructured so that existing shareholders of ELH retain the UK and Irish operations, while Wesfarmers would take on the group’s Australian and New Zealand operations.