Safeco sells life insurance, broker units for $1.4 b.(Lets Make A Deal)(Safeco Corp. sells Safeco Life & Investments Co. and Talbot Financial Corp.)

National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, March, 2004 by Sclafane, Susanne

The fact that Safeco will record a $200 million after-tax loss on the sale of its life and investment businesses isn't prompting any regrets from the company's chief executive. "We have none at all," Mike McGavick, Safeco's chairman and chief executive officer, said during a conference call last week, reiterating the Seattle-based insurer's plans, first disclosed in late September, to sell off the unit to focus exclusively on property-casualty business.

Last week, Safeco announced two separate cash transactions involving the sale of its life and investment businesses, as well as a brokerage operation. In the bigger deal, an investor group led by Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway and Bermuda-based White Mountains Insurance Group will together pay $1.35...

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