On March 30^th 2006 UNIQA came to an agreement with the owners of the fifth largest Serbian insurance company, Zepter Osiguranja A.D., who hold between them 100% of the share capital.  In a first step, UNIQA will take over 80% of the share capital for EUR 16 million.  At the same time they also laid down the general conditions for the acquisition of the remaining shares by UNIQA at a later point in time.  This transaction concerning the acquisition of 80% of the share capital of Zepter Osiguranja A.D. which is listed on the Belgrade Stock Exchange, must still be approved by the responsible authorities and will be completed during the next few months in a formal acquisition process as required by the local legal provisions. By joining Zepter Osiguranje the UNIQA Group has expanded its presence in the South Eastern European area and is now already represented in 15 European countries.

UNIQA CEO Konstantin Klien comments: "Based on the geographic location, the continuing positive political, economic and insurance market developments we had basically already made the decision at the end of 2005 to enter the Serbian market.  Following an intense screening of the market and various different scenarios for entering it, our attention focussed on Zepter Osiguranje.  With this successful and dynamically growing company UNIQA is now - in line with our corporate strategy for Eastern and South Eastern Europe - also present in Serbia with a mid-size player.  This acquisition will also expand our preferred partnership with Raiffeisen International by an additional country and enable the quick servicing throughout all of Raiffeisen Bank Serbia with modern insurance products that are tailored to bank sales."

In addition to building up bank sales, Klien sees the strengthening of its market position as leading life insurance and the expansion of the product range with innovative property insurance products as a medium-term goal for the new Serbian subsidiary.

Zepter Osiguranje
Zepter Osiguranje A.D. was founded in 1998 and according to preliminary data for 2005 earned a compulsory premium of about EUR 17.0 million – around 55% more than in the previous year.  Different from the general market situation, it generates most (70% of its premium volume) of its turnover in the life insurance line.  The remaining premiums are divided among the property and casualty insurance lines.  With a market share of about 35% in life insurance, Zepter Osiguranje is Serbia's largest life insurer by a clear margin. On the market as a whole, the company takes fifth place with about a 4% share of the market.  In addition to its head office in Belgrade, Zepter Osiguranje also has an excellent platform for serving its customers with 26 branches spread around the country.  The company currently employs a staff of 100 in its offices.  Sales are made by brokers, cooperative partners (e.g. travel agencies) and a sales force consisting of both employed and free lance salespersons.

Serbia's insurance market
Since the Serbian National Bank became the supervising authority for the insurance companies in 2003 their number has dropped from 40 down to 18.  In total, these companies generated already about EUR 319.1 million in premiums in the first three quarters of 2005 – about 3% more than in the whole year 2004.  Most of this (about 92%) was in the non-life area.  During the last few years the life insurance market has developed quite positively – however this was from a low starting position.  At about EUR 41, the average expenditure per person for insurance is about EUR 2,140 below the EU 15 average. The share of insurance premiums in the gross domestic product is at 2.2% on average for the region but nevertheless clearly below the level of the EU 15 (8.6%) or Austria (6.0%).