London-based insurance firm Aviva Plc has hired Chetan Singh, a managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co, to head its mergers and acquisitions globally.
Bloomberg reported that Singh, who is head of Southeast Asia and India, financial institutions group, investment banking, at JP Morgan’s Singapore office, will shift to London to head Aviva’s global M&A business.
Singh is expected to join the British insurer at the end of September, the report added.
According to a job posting, Aviva was looking to strengthen the acquisitions, joint ventures and disposals unit of its M&A team. Group M&A team is responsible for the identification and evaluation of inorganic opportunities; managing the M&A process end-to-end including co-ordination of internal approvals and negotiations with counterparties; and providing proposals, advice and support to board and senior executives on M&A opportunities.
Aviva’s chief executive officer Mark Wilson, who assumed responsibility in 2013, has been spearheading initiatives to reshape the firm through asset sales and acquisitions.
In January 2016, Aviva Canada acquired RBC General Insurance Company, the existing home and motor insurance business of RBC Insurance, for £281 million. The transaction will increase Aviva Canada’s annual gross written premiums (GWP) by approximately 20%. In 2014, Aviva Canada’s GWP was £2.2 billion.
In another deal, touted as the biggest insurance transaction in the UK deal in 15 years, Aviva bought Friends Life Group Ltd for more than $8 billion in December 2014.
In 2010, JPMorgan hired Singh from Citigroup Inc in London to head its financial institutions group in India. He previously worked as an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney for two years in its financial institutions group and investment banking division from 2000. Singh, who is an alumnus of Delhi University, completed MBA from INSEAD in 2003.
Aviva provides life, general and health insurance and asset management to 34 million customers, across 16 markets worldwide.
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