Fulfilment of the merger between insurers ACE and
Chubb will take about two years, ACE CEO Evan Greenberg relayed during a recent conference call.
In July, it was announced that the New York and
Zurich-based ACE would acquire Chubb for $28.3 billion. As one of the largest deals between life and property-casualty insurers, the combined company will control a total shareholders’ equity of nearly $46 billion and cash, investments and other assets of $150 billion.
Since then, the newly formed Chubb Group has announced that Ellen Moore will serve as senior vice president, North American insurance and regional executive officer (REO) for its Canadian operations. Andy Hollenberg, ACE’s country president of Canada, has been named regional chief operating officer (RCOO) and will report to Moore.
Following a shareholder vote last week which approved of these changes, the CEO said the company is already “deep into integration planning. This is something you want to get done reasonably quickly, you can’t linger on it,” he said.
Greenberg acknowledged, however, that a merger of this size requires sufficient time to iron out the fine-tuned details.
“Execution takes time and, you know, when you run the cycle, it takes you two years to get all of the mop-up done,” he said. “But you have to be relentless. You can’t lose your focus. Because you're doing it for the greater good, for efficiency, and to be the best.”
Despite redundancies for staff performing duplicate roles, Greenberg said he is determined to preserve the loyalty of customers and insurance brokers. In addition, he hopes to retain the best employees as Chubb becomes ‘a global leader in commercial and personal property and casualty insurance.’
“This transaction advances our strategy in a meaningful way and represents an outstanding opportunity to create significant value over a reasonable period of time for both ACE and Chubb shareholders. We will make each other better and create a unique company in a class of its own that has greater growth and earning power than the sum of the two companies separately,” he said.
