Hartford Financial Services breaks up 22 March 2012Connecticut Reporter: Georgina Lavers
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Hartford Financial Services group has shut down its annuity business, pursuing a sale or other options for its individual life insurance, retirement plan and broker-dealer businesses.
Following pressure to boost its stock price from the company’s largest shareholder, hedge fund manager John Paulson, the company said it would get rid of most of its life insurance-related operations and focus on being a property insurance company.
One of three insurers to receive a government bailout during the financial crisis, stocks in The Hartford have now climbed 6.4 percent to $23.10.
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Meyer Shields estimated the company could end up with proceeds of about $1.5 billion from the asset sales, mostly from the life and broker-dealer businesses, while Barclays analyst Jay Gelb said the assets were likely to draw interest from the likes of AIG.
The Hartford chief executive Liam McGee said in an interview the plan was not a direct reaction to Paulson’s fears, adding: "We take suggestions from all of our shareholders, not just Paulson, quite seriously. Clearly we evaluated a split but we were in the course of evaluating many options."
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