March 14 (Bloomberg) — Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., the insurer that's been focusing on property-casualty coverage, is near a deal to sell Japan operations to Orix Corp., according to two people with knowledge of their talks.
The transaction would include retirement products known as variable annuities, said the people, who asked not to be identified because discussions are private. Orix would pay about $875 million, according to Nikkei, which reported on the talks earlier today. Hartford jumped 1.8 percent to $35.55 at 2:15 p.m. in New York trading.
Hartford Chief Executive Officer Liam McGee, 59, has sold a U.S. unit to Prudential Financial Inc. and added hedges to guard against currency fluctuations and stock-market declines as he seeks to limit liabilities tied to life and retirement contracts issued in prior years. He announced a deal last year to sell a U.K. variable annuity unit to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
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"We continue to look at ways to further accelerate the runoff of the legacy annuity block and to permanently eliminate these exposures, Shannon LaPierre, a spokeswoman for the Hartford, Connecticut-based insurer, said in an e-mail today ''A transaction is one of the options we would evaluate.''
She said any offer would be evaluated based on the likelihood of regulators' support and the prospect that a deal would help release capital. She declined to comment on Orix, citing company policy about market speculation. Attempts to reach Japan's Orix for comment weren't immediately successful.
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