Tower is on track to take complete ownership of its subsidiary National Pacific Insurance Limited (NPI). The business is headquartered in Samoa and serves people across Tonga, American Samoa and Samoa.
In October, Tower purchased an additional 22% stake in NPI from its second largest shareholder for approximately $3.4m or 14.00 Samoan Tala per share, bringing Tower’s total shareholding to over 93%. Following this acquisition, Tower will seek to purchase the remaining shares from minority shareholders, via a compulsory acquisition as allowed under NPI’s governing documents and local laws.
Blair Turnbull, CEO of Tower, says owning 100% of NPI is another milestone in Tower’s investment in the Pacific and enables Tower to streamline its New Zealand and Pacific operations.
“Through this acquisition we are able to further streamline our Pacific corporate structure and also seek enhanced operational efficiencies. We are making positive progress around rationalising our product set as we move off the Pacific legacy systems onto Tower’s leading cloud-based technology platform.
“National Pacific Insurance is a valuable and growing part of our business. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, NPI has grown its revenue and we see a significant opportunity to grow it further.
“One of our first steps will be to rebrand NPI to Tower which will coincide with the launch of the first digital insurance solution in these markets, completing Tower’s digital roll out across the Pacific,” says Turnbull.
In addition to NPI’s three branches across Tonga, American Samoa and Samoa, Tower has Tower-branded operations in Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu.
Paula ter Brake, Managing Director – Pacific, says, “Tower is the only insurer with a breadth of retail and digital services across the Pacific Islands.
“We intend to build on the very important legacy that National Pacific Insurance has built in these territories, particularly our reputation for innovating to respond to customers’ needs and as an employer of choice in the Pacific.
“We see significant potential for the insurance industry across the Pacific and are honoured to take National Pacific Insurance’s rich history into the future under Tower branding.”
ENDS
For media enquiries, please contact in the first instance:
Emily Davies
Head of Corporate Affairs and Reputation
+64 21 815 149
emily.davies@tower.co.nz