Fulfillment of the merger between insurers ACE and
Chubb will take about two years, it was revealed by Evan Greenberg, CEO of ACE, during a conference call last week.
In July of this year, it was announced that the New York and
Zurich based company ACE, would acquire Chubb, the New Jersey-based insurance group, 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.
Following a shareholder vote last week which approved the proposal that both companies will operate under the Chubb name with Greenberg at the helm, the CEO said the company is already “deep into integration planning. This is something you want to get done reasonably quickly, you cant linger on it,” he said.
However, Greenberg acknowledged that with a merger of this size it is the execution that takes time.
“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,” he added.
Despite redundancies for staff performing duplicate roles, Greenberg said he is determined to keep the loyalty of customers and insurance brokers while retaining 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.
