No word yet on Liberty Life job outlook in Greenville | greenvilleonline.com | The Greenville News | Advisor Area

word yet on Liberty Life job outlook in Greenville

BY DAVID DYKES • STAFF WRITER • PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 26. 2010 2:00AM

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The future of 200 Liberty Life Insurance Co. jobs in Greenville remained unknown Monday following the announcement the company is being acquired by a Bermuda-based company for $628.1 million.

Athene Holding Ltd., which said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Liberty Life, wouldn’t comment. A spokesman in Greenville for Liberty Life, the head office of Royal Bank of Canada‘s U.S. insurance unit, referred questions to Jim Belardi, Athene Holding’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Belardi declined comment to The Greenville News.

A spokesman said RBC Insurance’s employees in Greenville includes underwriters and members of the finance, compliance, marketing and legal departments. The new-business office, primarily involved in issuing insurance policies, and agent-licensing operations also are here, the spokesman said.

RBC officials said the transaction is expected to close in early 2011.

Immediately following the closing, Liberty Life will reinsure its life and health insurance business to Birmingham, Ala.-based Protective Life Insurance Co. and a portion of its annuities to Athene Life Re Ltd., a Bermuda-based subsidiary of Athene Holding, the officials said.

In a statement last week, Belardi said the acquisition of Liberty Life is “a major step in growing our fixed annuity business. Liberty Life has a $2.8 billion block of fixed annuities, insurance licenses in 49 states and a substantial footprint in the United States.”

Belardi, who was president of SunAmerica Life Insurance Co. and executive vice president and chief investment officer of AIG Retirement Services, Inc., founded Athene with a group of institutional investors.

Liberty Corp., whose president was Hayne Hipp, sold its insurance operations to RBC in 2000 for $650 million.

Liberty Life has been the U.S. life insurance business of RBC Insurance.

Athene’s core business is reinsuring fixed annuities and issuing GIC-backed notes and funding agreements and investing in a diversified portfolio of fixed income securities.

As part of its purchase of Liberty Corp., RBC acquired all of the company’s real estate, including its headquarters on Wade Hampton Boulevard.

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