Considerable investments in the current year
The Supervisory Board of UNIQA Versicherungen AG has in principle given its agreement to the purchase of more than 90% of the share capital of  the Polish insurance companies "Polonia S.A." ("Polonia") and "Polonia Zycie S.A." ("Polonia Leben"). The decision on a purchase agreement for the two Polish companies must, however, because of the complex company legislation, be further negotiated with the Polonia shareholders.

If the negotiations are successfully concluded and the companies taken over by UNIQA Versicherungen AG, considerable investments will be made in the current year to strengthen the equity basis. Thus UNIQA will further reinforce the market position of "Polonia" and  "Polonia Leben" and open up new strategic options, especially in the growth area of life insurance.

First discussions on participation by the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) in the restructuring of the two Polish companies under UNIQA leadership have been very positive. The EBRD is already participating in the two UNIQA subsidiaries CRP (Czech Republic) and Austrija Osiguranje (Croatia).

Polonia
"Polonia" was founded in  1990 as a purely private undertaking. The total premium income of “Polonia” amounts to about PLN 278 million (ATS 973 million/EURO 70.71 million), with a market share of about 2.5%. The core business of "Polonia" is in motor insurance, which plays a dominant role in the market as a whole.

"Polonia Leben" was founded in 1994 as a subsidiary of Polonia. The large majority of the share capital is in the sphere of influence of the majority shareholder of Polonia. The premium income  ( PLN 4 million /ATS 14 million /EURO 1,02 million ) of the young company is still relatively small. However, in view of the increasing importance of private car (e.g. introduction of obligatory pension funds in May 1999) a huge growth is forecast for this field. The combined headquarters of "Polonia" and "Polonia Leben" is in Lodz, a town with about one million inhabitants, 120 km from Warsaw. Here the two companies employ about 200 qualified staff. The insurance products are marketed by 58 representatives and 570 agencies with about 2,700 freelance agents. "Polonia" and "Polonia Leben" are to date the only Polish insurance companies using this form of selling.

With this planned acquisition the UNIQA Group Austria is firmly promoting  the internationalization of its core business. Its involvement in the significant and future-orientated market of Poland represents UNIQA’s largest foreign venture so far. Only a few weeks ago UNIQA reached agreement with the Generali Group on a take-over of Camica Versicherung, and thus strengthened its presence in the Italian market. The UNIQA Group Austria has many years of experience in Eastern and Central European markets and is active in insurance business not only in Austria, its core market, but in ten further European countries (Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Liechtenstein).