PARIS (Reuters) - Chartis Inc, the insurer in the process of distancing itself from bailed-out parent AIG (AIG.N), aims to reach a decision before the end of next year on a possible stock market listing, a leading director told Reuters.
"We will be in a position to adequately evaluate the value that we can get from an IPO (initial public offering) sometime before the end of 2010. It's not a 2009 event," Chartis Europe Chief Executive Julio Portalatin said in an interview.
Chartis, a property and casualty insurer, is building on plans first announced in March to put space between itself and the troubles of parent AIG.
AIG nearly collapsed during the financial crisis and was rescued by the U.S. government around a year ago. It lost nearly $100 billion in 2008 but its Chartis division had profits of more than $2 billion.
Chartis has said it plans to sell a stake of up to 20 percent either through an initial public offering or transactions with private investors, cutting AIG's ownership, depending on market conditions.
An offering could raise billions of dollars for AIG, helping it to repay the U.S. government, which has committed up to $180 billion in aid, including about $85 billion in loans.
Portalatin said Chartis Europe had been broadly unaffected by AIG's woes and that 2008 was a record year for profits, with pre-tax profit up 67 percent.
While he said it was too early to give an outlook for 2009, Portalatin was upbeat about Chartis Europe's prospects.
"Chartis Europe continues to do very well. We're financially strong," he said. "If you look at customer retention, it's still very high, north of 90 percent."
FIGHTING SPIRIT
He added that employee morale in his business was high despite AIG's near-demise last year and that Chartis Europe was actually looking to expand and hire new staff. Chartis Europe has 2,100 workers out of over 30,000 at Chartis Inc.
"We like to think that we have a lot of employees who are very dedicated and loyal and when their backs are up against the wall, they'll come out fighting. I think you'll find that the fighting spirit lives very strongly," he said.
Portalatin said Chartis wanted to hire people to develop new products for the aviation industry and also aimed to target a segment known as "High Net Worth Individuals" -- rich people who might need to insure property, cars or works of art.
He added that Chartis Europe could take advantage of regulatory changes brought by the European Union's Solvency II rules to make small-scale, niche acquisitions.
The directive, which enters into force in 2012, will introduce more sophisticated solvency requirements that take better account of the risks insurers must tackle.
Chartis Europe currently counts for around 10 percent of Chartis' group-level premium income. Portalatin wants Europe to contribute more to the group and said his company was keen to expand in markets such as Russia or Scandinavia.
"I think that, in years to come, if you look at Solvency II, there will be opportunities that will present themselves," he said.
(Editing by James Regan)
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