Kwik-Fit sell KFIS for £215 million
A £215 million deal has been agreed to sell the insurance broking arm of car repair chain Kwik-Fit, it has been announced.
Kwik-Fit Insurance Services (KFIS) is being sold to the UK division of Belgian insurer Ageas by the company's French owners PAI Partners. The insurance arm, which has policies covering travel, car and home insurance, has 600,000 customers.
The deal will make Ageas the country's fourth largest personal insurance broker with 1.6 million customers.
The sale of the insurance arm comes after PAI - which bought Kwik-Fit for £800 million in 2005 - pumped £20 million into the business earlier this year to avoid breaching banking covenants. Proceeds from the insurance disposal will be put towards cutting Kwik-Fit's net debts, which stood at £811 million at the end of last year.
KFIS, which was launched in 1995, has around 1,000 staff and sells insurance under the Kwik-Fit brand, as well as through the Green Insurance Company and Express Insurance names.
Ageas is the company left from the remains of the former banking and insurance giant Fortis, which joined with part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland in a disastrous consortium bid for ABN Amro in 2007 and was eventually broken up following the financial crisis. The insurer, which will still trade under the Fortis name in the UK until next year, also struck a partnership deal with Tesco Bank last year to handle its car and household insurance.