Aegon : completes sale of its Canadian life insurance business

Aegon has completed the sale of its Canadian life insurance business to Wilton Re following regulatory approval.

The agreement to sell Aegon's Canadian life insurance business to Wilton Re for CAD 600 million (EUR 417 million) was announced on October 16, 2014. The transaction will result in a book loss of CAD 1.2 billion (EUR 0.8 billion), which will be booked in the third quarter of 2015. Aegon has earmarked the proceeds of this transaction for the redemption of the USD 500 million 4.625% senior bond, due December 2015.

The combination of the divestment and the non-refinancing of the bond will improve Aegon's return on equity by approximately 40 basis points, while reducing net underlying earnings by less than 1%. It will also improve Aegon's leverage ratio by approximately 40 basis points on a pro forma basis, while the fixed charge cover ratio will improve by 0.5 times.