Sampo: Completes Demerger of Mandatum

On Oct. 2, Sampo SAMPO completed the demerger of its life insurance business, Mandatum, with Mandatum being admitted to the official list and Sampo shares now trading without ownership of Mandatum. Sampo shareholders have received one Mandatum share for every Sampo share that they held as at Sept. 29, 2023. This leaves Sampo as a business that is purely focused on property and casualty insurance and gives Mandatum, as well as Sampo, greater strategic and financial independence to pursue its own strategy. The demerger also reduces market risk exposure and earnings volatility for Sampo.

Sampo announced a strategic review to separate Mandatum in December 2022 in light of the division consuming one fifth of Sampo’s capital and contributing around 15% to total Sampo earnings. Sampo is an efficiently run personal lines property and casualty insurer focused on the Nordic markets and tends to concentrate on disciplined growth. It is the largest Nordics property and casualty insurer with a 20% market share. We anticipate the demerger will provide Sampo with greater flexibility to pursue digital improvements across divisions, benefit from strengths across geographies, and improve the operating performance of Topdanmark. We maintain our EUR 40 per share fair value estimate and our narrow moat rating.