Five deals worth some 900 million euros led to stockholder changes in seven insurance companies on the local market in 2008, Business Standard reported.

The sale of Asiban insurer, seen as one of last year's top deals, brought major players on the global market into the spotlight. The company was owned by four lenders - Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), Banca Romana de Dezvoltare - Groupe Societe Generale (BRD-SocGen), Banca Transilvania (BT), and the state-owned Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni (CEC).

Eight insurance giants were interested in Asiban, namely the French Axa and Groupama groups, the Austrian Uniqa group, Dutch insurers Eureko and Aegon, Italy-based Fondiaria and Generali and German group Munich Re. Market sources were estimating the deal at 250-300 mln euros.

In April, Groupama closed the deal with the four lenders, for 350 mln euros. Earlier this year, the group had taken over the insurance segment of Hungarian OTP lender, including the OTP Garancia branch in Romania, for which it paid some 3 mln euros.

In March, Austrian Erste group sold its BCR Asigurari and BCR Asigurari de Viata insurance divisions locally to Austrian Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) for 244 mln euros. Thus, VIG reached a 37% of the Romanian insurance market. It later sold insurer Unita for an estimated 200 mln euros.

In late June, insurance companies ARDAF and RAI were transferred from PPF Investments fund to the Generali PPF joint venture, in a deal worth 80 mln euros. Italian Generali group and Czech PPF group last year founded a mixed company for the purpose of merging their operations in Central and Eastern Europe.