(Bloomberg) — Zurich Insurance Group AG, the largest Swissinsurer, said the sale of its Russian retail unit will lead to anestimated loss of about $300 million.

The insurer said it is selling the business to Moscow-based OlmaGroup and intends to retain and build its Russian corporatebusiness, according to a statement on its website today.

“While we invest in priority markets, we either turn around orexit those that are under-performing,” Mike Kerner, chief executiveofficer of general insurance at Zurich, said in the statement.“When announcing our annual results 2013, we said that the Russianretail business had not developed according to our expectations andthat we would explore options for it.”

Aviva Plc, the U.K. insurer, last year sold its Russian unit,following in the footsteps of several European financialinstitutions that exited the Russian retail market after failing togain scale. Barclays Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc and Banco Santander SAhave all sold their consumer banking operations in Russia over thepast three years after being unable to compete withstate-controlled lenders.

The sale to Olma, a brokerage and investment-services company,amounts to 1 billion rubles ($30 million), according to Zurich. Thebusiness includes about 1.2 million policies representing grosswritten premiums of 7.1 billion rubles in 2013, Zurich said in thestatement.

Zurich shares were up 0.3% to 271.40 Swiss francs in Zurichtrading at 9:10 a.m.

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