Banks Have Unfair Edge Over Insurers in M&A Race: NN CEO Says

A top European insurance executive slammed a piece of regulation that has emerged as key driver behind a recent slate of asset management acquisitions by banks.

The rule known as Danish Compromise gives the region’s lenders “an advantage” when buying investment units, NN Group NV Chief Executive Officer David Knibbe said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He has complained about the issue to several European regulators, he said.

The Danish Compromise allows banks to reduce the hit to their regulatory capital levels if they buy an asset management firm through an insurance subsidiary. BNP Paribas used the loophole when buying AXA’s investment unit last year and Banco BPM SpA in Italy has said the effect is essential in its proposed acquisition of the asset manager Anima Holding SpA.

The comments show that insurance companies are unhappy with what they see as a distorted competitive landscape. Speaking at an event in November, Carlo Cimbri, the chairman of Italian insurer Unipol Assicurazioni SpA, labeled as “scandalous” the advantage afforded by the Danish Compromise to banks in asset management M&A

“It is not very much facilitated that insurance companies own a bank…while the other way around has been made, from a capital point of view, relatively attractive,” Knibbe said in the interview at Davos.

NN agreed in 2021 to sell its investment arm to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for about €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion).

Copyright 2025 Bloomberg.

Topics
Mergers & Acquisitions
Carriers

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