One of London’s few remaining of listed Lloyd's of London insurers is being taken over by a Bermuda-based rival in a £468mln deal.
AXIS Capital is shelling out 700p a share in cash for Novae Group PLC – a 29% premium to the average price over the last month.
Novae’s take-out leaves just three specialist Lloyds businesses trading on the market - Beazley (LON:BEZ), Lancashire Holdings (LON:LRE) and Hiscox Ltd (LON:HSX).
New York-quoted AXIS, valued at £4.3bn, is no doubt taking advantage of the weak pound to pick off an asset is effectively 20% cheaper than was a little over a year ago.
The Novae bid followed hard on the heels another, larger opportunistic swoop as US giant Vantiv said it was prepared to £7.7bn for payments specialist Worldpay Group PLC (LON: WPG).