Tower is looking to take complete ownership of its subsidiary National Pacific Insurance Limited (NPI). NPI, headquartered in Samoa, serves the markets of Tonga, American Samoa and Samoa.
Last month, Tower increased its holdings in NPI by 22% by buying a share purchase from its second largest shareholder for approximately $3.4 million. This took Tower’s total shareholding beyond 93%. Following the transaction, Tower said it will seek to purchase the remaining shares from minority shareholders through compulsory acquisition as provided by NPI’s governing documents and local laws.
Tower CEO Blair Turnbull said complete ownership of NPI is another milestone in Tower’s investment in the Pacific, which allows the company 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” Turnbull said. “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.”
Turnbull also said that NPI will be rebranded to the Tower identity, coinciding with the launch of its first digital insurance offering in the markets NPI is present in.
Tower also does business in Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu. The insurer recently partnered with Business Link Pacific to boost insurance awareness in these South Pacific markets.
“Tower is the only insurer with a breadth of retail and digital services across the Pacific Islands,” said Paula ter Brake, managing director – Pacific. “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.”
