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Mubadala Capital-backed Aquarian Holdings is in advanced talks to take US life insurer Brighthouse Financial private in a $4bn transaction that could be announced as soon as this weekend, according to three people briefed on the matter.
Aquarian will pay as much as $70 per share, a 40 per cent premium to Brighthouse’s equity price in January when the Financial Times reported the beginning of the sale process. Brighthouse shares closed on Thursday at $45.69.
While talks have reached an advanced stage after months of on and off negotiations, the sources cautioned that no deal had been fully agreed and talks could ultimately break down.
Aquarian is a New York-based asset manager run by Rudy Sahay, a former executive at Guggenheim Partners, and one of the pioneers in matching insurance assets with private investments such as securitised debt, leveraged loans and property.
The Brighthouse auction also featured interest from several private capital groups, including Apollo, TPG, Sixth Street and Carlyle, but some potential bidders baulked during their due diligence process or were unwilling to pay a premium price.
Advisers for Brighthouse including Goldman Sachs spent weeks vetting Aquarian’s financial firepower after the asset manager offered a deal price far greater than what rivals were willing to bid.
Mubadala Capital, the Abu Dhabi-based private capital group, would lead equity financing for the deal, while a consortium of banks would also arrange a more than $1bn debt package, said the sources.
Mubadala Capital is a minority investor in Aquarian after committing $1.5bn to the insurance-focused investment group last year.
The Brighthouse sale process comes as several other large life insurance platforms, including American Equity Life, American National, Global Atlantic and Talcott Resolution, have merged into alternative asset managers.
Insurers affiliated with private capital firms more aggressively invest customer funds in private debt, which can earn asset managers excess returns above payouts to policyholders, rather than in public investment-grade bonds.
Brighthouse had struggled as an independent company since being spun off from MetLife in 2017. The group’s focus on variable annuities, a complex product that is expensive to hedge and carries high capital charges, has weighed on its results in recent years and led to quarterly losses because of large accounting swings.
However, Brighthouse has a portfolio of $120bn in assets that Aquarian is expected to redeploy more heavily in private credit and other alternative investments.
The deal would place Aquarian among the world’s largest private capital-backed life insurance groups. With about $25bn in assets, its acquisition of Brighthouse would increase its portfolio by about fourfold.
Brighthouse, Aquarian and Mubadala Capital declined to comment.
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