Irish Life interested in taking majority ownership of GloHealth

Irish Life’s chief executive Bill Kyle has told The Irish Times that it would be interested in taking a majority stake in health insurer GloHealth in the coming years.

“Yeah, I think we would,” Mr Kyle said on a call to discuss Irish Life’s full year results. “As it continues to grow probably over the next four to five years I could see us increasing our holdings there significantly.”

GloHealth was launched in mid 2012 by former executives of Aviva and businessman Oliver Tattan with €8 million in financial backing from Irish Life, which holds a 49 per cent stake.

Glo has successfully gained market share in competition with VHI, Aviva and Laya Healthcare.

“It’s well ahead of its projections and finished the year with close to 110,000 customers. It’s probably about a year and a half ahead of what some of the initial forecasts were,” Mr Kyle said.

“It’s doing very well in the corporate healthcare market with clients such as Apple. They’re a really neat group. They’re quite innovative and committed to growing the business. We’re quite excited about them. We think that’s a good opportunity for growth.”

In relation to the willingness of Glo Health’s other shareholders to sell their shares to Irish Life, Mr Kyle said: “There a game plan in place and we would expect it to work itself out as we go forward.”

Irish Life made an after-tax profit of €184 million in 2014, its first full year under the ownership of Canadian group Great-West Lifeco. Its profit for the three months ended December 31st rose by 94 per cent year on year to €49 million.

This represented Irish Life’s second strongest quarter since it was acquired from the State by Great-West Lifeco in July 2013 for €1.3 billion.

The Irish Life integration programme continued last year, with annualised savings of €40.8 million achieved. The Canadian company now expects to exceed the original €40 million synergy target by at least 10 per cent.

Commenting on the results, Mr Kyle said: “While focused on integration, our business continues to grow. Overall, we now have more than one million customers, €56 billion of assets under management and 2,200 employees.”

Irish Life generated €397 million of Great-West Lifeco’s fee income last year. A highlight of the fourth quarter was the success of its Multi-asset Portfolios funds, with more than €3 billion now invested.

Great-West Lifeco merged Irish Life with its existing Canada Life subsidiary here.

“Our €60 million integration programme is nearing completion, with 69 per cent of the investment incurred as of December 31st,” Mr Kyle said. “We expect the Canada Life business to be fully integrated with Irish Life, ahead of target, in April 2015.”