(Bloomberg) — RSA Insurance Group Plc agreed to sell the insurance businesses of its branches in Singapore and Hong Kong to Allied World Assurance Co. for about 130 million pounds ($216 million) in cash as it retreats from markets.

The sale of RSA Singapore and RSA Hong Kong will result to a gain on sale of about 110 million pounds and an addition to the group's tangible net assets of 95 million pounds, boosting capital, the London-based insurer said in a statement today. The transactions will be completed early 2015.

RSA Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester is seeking to reverse a decade of acquisitions that saw RSA expand in more than 30 countries. The former banker said last month that he's ahead of a three-year plan to remake the insurer as he mulls further asset sales in the wake of an accounting scandal in Ireland last year and a 775 million-pound rights issue.

“The transaction builds further on the momentum of our recently announced disposal in the Baltics, Poland, Canada and China and represents continued progress against our aim of tightening the strategic focus of the group,” Hester said in the statement. “Further disposals are targeted over the next 12 to 18 months to complete this process.”

Recommended For You

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.