Petra Hielkema, chair of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), said private equity (PE) ownership could bring capital, expertise and competition

International News via Reuters:

Private equity firms seeking to buy European insurers must show they can support policyholders for the long term rather than pursuing a quick profit, Europe’s insurance watchdog said.

Petra Hielkema, chair of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), said private equity (PE) ownership could bring capital, expertise and competition.

“If you say you’re long term, you should be long term and long term is not five years,” she told Reuters.

Alternative asset managers have been expanding into insurance, attracted by predictable income streams and the large pools of assets insurers manage on behalf of customers.

Such deals have caught the attention of regulators and investors, heightened by some recent stress in the market for private, or unlisted, investments.

Supervisors want to ensure new owners do not channel policyholder money into riskier affiliated investments or leave insurers financially weaker when they exit, Hielkema said.

“The question you would then need to ask is: what is your post-acquisition strategy?” she said, adding: “You need a convincing answer to that, that also satisfies the need for prudence, consumer protection, and stability”.

EIOPA, which coordinates the European Union’s 27 national insurance watchdogs, is due to finalise a “supervisory statement” to help them assess takeovers by private equity firms, which typically aim to sell after around five years.

Prospective buyers will be asked how long they expect to stay invested as insurers have obligations to customers stretching across decades.

Regulators will also examine ownership structures, transactions within the group and investment strategies that could expose policyholders to new risks.

They are also paying close attention to insurers’ growing exposure to private credit and increasingly complex reinsurance arrangements that transfer risks to affiliated entities, sometimes in offshore jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands.

In Britain, regulators plan to tighten the capital treatment of so-called funded reinsurance.

‘TOO MUCH’ IN SOME COUNTRIES

Although private equity ownership remains relatively low in the EU, the average masks higher concentrations in some countries. Around 20% of Greece’s insurance market is linked to PE, Portugal and Luxembourg about 16% and the Netherlands 13%.

Private equity investors took control of 37 EU insurers between 2014 and 2024 and exited 11, leaving 26 PE-owned insurance groups with about €260 billion ($303 billion) of assets under management, or 2.4% of the market, EIOPA said.

The number of PE-owned U.S. insurers rose from 90 in 2018 to 137 in 2024, with $704 billion in cash and invested assets, or 7.8% of the industry total, U.S. supervisor NAIC said.    

“In some individual cases there is a point where the supervisor will say: this is too much,” said Hielkema, adding that regulators could act when an insurer became overly dependent on one investor or on transactions with affiliated companies, creating concentration risks.

Hielkema said some investors may overestimate how easily business models that proved successful in the United States and Britain can be transplanted into continental Europe, where insurance products, customer behaviour and regulation differ.

She highlighted Eurovita, an Italian insurer owned by private equity group Cinven, which had to be rescued in 2023. 

Reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Alexander Smith

BermudAir faces competition from U.S. carriers such as JetBlue, American and United on New York flights, but some of the new routes do not have significant competition

International News via Reuters:

BermudAir is ordering 10 Airbus A220 airplanes as it plans new routes to Bermuda, Anguilla, Belize, and Turks and Caicos, the startup airline said Wednesday.

“The performance characteristics of the A220 enable us to open up more markets and to expand our footprint,” BermudAir CEO and founder Adam Scott said in an interview, adding the airline plans to more than double its current 11 routes by the end of the year.

The order for A220-300 was signed at the Farnborough airshow. The carrier serving Bermuda has been in operation since 2023. BermudAir said it plans to add up to 20 A220 aircraft by 2030 and eventually replace its Embraer 190 fleet.

BermudAir faces competition from U.S. carriers such as JetBlue, American and United on New York flights, but some of the new routes do not have significant competition.

Scott said the carrier is focused on improving the experience of customers.

“We’re winning those customers because we actually just do something that is that’s very different,” Scott said.

The new routes include six to Turks and Caicos, with service from Newark, Boston, Baltimore-Washington, Raleigh-Durham, Fort Lauderdale and St Petersburg/Tampa, and five new routes to Belize. The airline is also expanding seasonal service to Anguilla.

The airline plans to add wifi, which its current planes do not have.

Starting an airline is not easy, he added. “You’ve got to be very determined. You got to be committed to it,” Scott said. “It’s steady wins the race.”

Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Joe Bavier and Andrew Heavens

In France, where two firefighters died on Tuesday as their truck was engulfed in flames in the southwest region of Gironde, authorities urged people to avoid using barbecues in areas hit by heatwaves

International News via Reuters:

Firefighters battled huge blazes in Spain and France on Wednesday, with the risk of more wildfires very high across much of Spain even as a major one raging in its central Guadalajara province receded, allowing some residents to return home.

In France, where two firefighters died on Tuesday as their truck was engulfed in flames in the southwest region of Gironde, authorities urged people to avoid using barbecues in areas hit by heatwaves, stressing that nine out of 10 wildfires start, accidentally or not, as a result of human activity.

Meanwhile, in the Western Balkans, the danger has shifted from heatwaves to hailstorms, with several people injured in North Macedonia and eastern Kosovo. 

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent and scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while also creating conditions for sudden, destructive storms.

The continent has endured three stifling, virtually back-to-back heatwaves ​so far this year. Intense heat has also been blamed for thousands of excess deaths in the May to June period. 

The Reuters Climate Monitor, an interactive ​tool providing real-time data, showed the average high ​temperature across Western Europe is forecast to be 26.6 C, which is three degrees above the normal high for July 22 in the period from 1961 to 1990.            

SPANISH WILDFIRE

Spain’s worst wildfire so far this year has burned an estimated 32,000 hectares in the Guadalajara region. It started to stabilise on Tuesday after forcing evacuations in 34 municipalities and confinement orders in 14 others.

Castilla-La Mancha’s INFOCAM fire service said residents of five villages had been authorised to return, although other restrictions remained in place. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was due to visit the affected area later on Wednesday.

Spain’s weather agency AEMET said the danger of wildfires remained “very high or extreme” across most of mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands and was expected to increase further in the coming days.

It urged people to “exercise extreme caution” as the ongoing heatwave combined with dry thunderstorms and Saharan dust.

AEMET spokesperson Ruben del Campo said the heatwave was expected to peak on Wednesday, with temperatures reaching 39-42 degrees Celsius across swathes of the country.

While temperatures will ease slightly in some areas on Thursday, a dry westerly wind is forecast to drive a fresh surge of heat in Mediterranean regions, where highs of 42-44 C could be recorded in parts of the Ebro and Guadalquivir valleys, inland Valencia, Murcia and eastern Andalusia.

A marked cooldown is expected from Friday, with temperatures dropping sharply on Saturday to near or even below average levels in parts of central and western Spain.

However, the respite may be brief. Temperatures are forecast to rise again from Sunday, and intense heat could return across much of Spain early next week.

FRANCE FIRES

In France, less severe temperatures and lighter winds aided efforts to fight a wildfire that has burned 2,500 hectares in the southeastern Var area, damaged dozens of homes and forced 400 people to flee their homes, local authorities said.

At 7 a.m. (0500 GMT), helicopters resumed dropping water on the Var wildfire, which is still active. 

“The situation has been very difficult. Some 1,100 firefighters fought all night,” Commander William Vogl, a spokesperson for the Var firefighters, said on RMC radio. The fire was not yet contained but winds should be “more favourable” on Wednesday, he said.

Prefect Simon Babre said barbecues were banned, and he also asked municipalities to cancel any plans for traditional summer fireworks.

Another fire was raging in the Hautes-Alpes, in the south-east, officials said. 

HEAT AND STORMS

In Greece, the capital Athens and other eastern and mainland areas were sizzling for a third day, with temperatures forecast to top 41 degrees Celsius. Authorities have banned outdoor work at peak midday sun and advised employers to allow remote work for vulnerable workers.

In Skopje, capital of North Macedonia, 11 people were admitted to hospital, three of them with serious injuries, after a storm on Tuesday night felled trees, damaged roofs and caused power outages across the Balkan country, local media reported.

Roads were blocked and some towns left without electricity and water.

In Kosovo, the Hydrometeorological Institute said more storms were expected on Wednesday and warned of possible lightning strikes, damage to the electricity network, power outages, flooding and property damage.

Local media showed roofs being blown away, torrential rain and residents covering their cars with blankets on Tuesday to protect them from hail.

Reporting by Manon Cruz in Cotignac, France, Guillermo Martinez in Condemios de Abajo, Spain; Emma Pinedo in Madrid, Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Fatos Bytyci in Tirana, Angeliki Koutantou in Athens, Daria Sito-Sucic in Sarajevo; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Gareth Jones