Irish Life receives ‘AA’ rating upgrade from Fitch

Rating agency Fitch has upgraded Ireland's largest life assurance company Irish Life one notch to 'AA' from 'AA-'.

The move comes at it also affirmed Irish Life’s Canadian parent Great-West Lifeco at ‘A+’.

Fitch said the upgrade of Irish Life’s ratings reflected its view that the company had become core to the Winnipeg-headquartered group.

Great-West’s acquired Irish Life from the State in July 2013 for €1.3 billion. The Canadian group’s ownership of the Irish assurance company has resulted in a three-notch uplift in ratings.

In a review, Fitch said the acquisition of Irish Life had been well managed and had provided the company “with critical scale in the Irish market as well as operational synergies and expense savings.”

Irish Life has contributed CAD40 million (€27.4m) to Great-West's profits in the third quarter of 2015. Earlier this month the company announced plans to create 150 jobs across its business in Ireland as its chief executive Bill Kyle said the firm had been successfully integrated with Canada Life.

"We are pleased that Fitch has once again recognised the progress made in recent months and in particular has noted that the upgrade reflects Irish Life's strong standalone capitalisation, comparatively low-risk business and leading market position," said Mr Kyle.