From now on, the APRIL Group will be offering only niche property and casualty insurance in Canada.
Two and a half years after acquiring Benecaid, the French group has shed the Ontario-based MGA and third party administrator that offers group health and dental plans and supplementary benefits to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Benecaid is now owned by the Green Shield Benefits Association. This non-profit organization is a subsidiary of Canadian group and individual benefits provider Green Shield Canada(GSC), which announced the transaction on Nov. 26. Contacted by the Insurance Portal, Green Shield Canada confirmed that Green Shield Benefits Association has acquired 100% of the shares of Benecaid.
GSC wants to diversify
One of the goals of this acquisition is to advance GSC's "broader business diversification strategy, specifically in benefits management," Zahid Salman, GSC President and CEO said in a press release.
GSC intends to retain both the Benecaid brand and the current management team, which will continue to operate the business. The group announced that Peter Berczi and David Katz, President and CEO and Executive Vice President of Benecaid, respectively, will join the executive team of GSC's benefit management division.
APRIL redirects its activities
The APRIL Group acquired 93% of Benecaid shares on April 20, 2018; the management team retained the remaining 7%.
Before buying out Benecaid, the group was present in Canada only in niche P&C insurance through its subsidiaries APRIL Canada and APRIL Marine. This transaction fuelled its foray into the Canadian group insurance market.
Now, APRIL wants to refocus on its core operations.
"Wanting to do it all means sometimes getting lost," APRIL Canada's CEO Sébastien Gabez told the Insurance Portal.
"As a wholesale broker, you have to make choices, you have to stay relevant. The APRIL group decided to sell Benecaid because operating in local healthcare outside France is no longer part of the group's core strategic activities,” he explains, adding that "this transaction is part of a general repositioning effort.”
Global strategy
Gabez recounts that after acquiring Benecaid, APRIL implemented a new global strategic plan under the leadership of Eric Maumy, CEO of the group since September 2019.
As part of this strategic plan, dubbed Spring, APRIL "made choices, including positioning itself in its core businesses,” namely loan insurance, local health insurance in France, international health insurance, and niche P&C insurance, the specialty of its Canadian branch. "In Canada, we are focused on 8 to 9 niches in which we position ourselves as experts, and that's quite enough for us," Gabez says.
He adds that the sale of Benecaid has no impact on APRIL Canada's business. "I'd even say we're growing vigorously," in the 25% range in premiums, and even revenues, for the year 2020, he says.
