Groupama eyes growth

Despite the global turmoil, Turkey remains an attractive market for insurance companies. "Turkey is our third largest international market," said Jean Fran?ois Lemoux, the managing director of Groupama International which owns Turkey's Başak Sigorta, yesterday. The French manager also revealed the company's interest in acquiring another insurance company.

"Turkey's insurance market has grown 7 percent since 2002. Premiums grew 25 percent in the same period. While the total amount of insurance premiums stood at 2.3 billion euros in 2002, it reached 5.6 billion euros in 2007. These figures show there is great potential in Turkey," Lemoux told journalists in Istanbul.

"Despite the fact that Turkey's per capita gross gomestic product, or GDP, is below Europe's average, it represents unique growth potential for the insurance sector with its young and dynamic population," he added.

To increase market share
Groupama, which purchased Güven Sigorta for YTL 350 million from the Central Union of Agricultural Credit Cooperatives of Turkey, or TTKKMB, last June, "is looking forward to strengthening its presence," Lemoux said. "We are looking forward to acquiring majority shares in Güneş Sigorta in the future. But we are waiting for the sale decision of Vakıfbank, currently its major shareholder," he said.

"We are already the market leader in agricultural insurance, but we aim to raise our market share to 50 percent."

As to whether Groupama has been affected by the global financial crisis Lemoux said, "Not heavily. The crisis caused a meltdown in our shares, but shares are just 10 percent of our assets. It did not affect our operations significantly.

"We bought Güven Sigorta in June when the crisis was not felt as much as it is now. But we would have bought it anyway, even if the affect of the crisis was bigger at the time," Lemoux said.

"Güven Sigorta is the market leader in Turkey's agricultural insurance market, it will strengthen this position with Groupama. Agriculture in Turkey will benefit from this acquisition," said Bedrettin Yıldırım, managing director of TTKKMB.

"Cooperation with insurance companies in Turkey's agriculture sector could help the farmers of Turkey considerably, who are vulnerable to natural disasters such as drought," said Yıldırım. Guven Sigorta has a 2.4 percent share of the Turkish insurance market not including life insurance, which ranks it at 13th overall, while Güven Hayat has 1.2 percent of the life insurance market, ranking it at 15th.

The French company has been active in the Turkish market since the early 1990s. The company purchased 36 percent of the shares in Güneş Sigorta in 1991 and in the same year bought Başak Sigorta and Başak Emeklilik via their privatization process.

Aside from France and Turkey, Groupama operates in 12 other countries, including Spain, Britain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Vietnam and China.