Under the lead of insurance law expert Felix Hörlsberger and M&A expert Christian Ritschka, Merkur Versicherung took an important step towards an even more comprehensive offering as a personal insurer. In the last 40 years, Salzburg-based NVÖ has been offering multiple award-winning insurance products in life insurance (especially unit-linked insurance), occupational disability and long-term care pension insurance. The company employs 123 employees in Austria and the premium volume in 2020 was around EUR 110 million. The location in Salzburg and its employees will be retained as the Merkur Group aims to develop the location into a life insurance specialist hub.

The purchase agreement was concluded on 13 December 2021 and is subject to the necessary regulatory and competition law approvals.

Garanta Versicherungs-AG Österreich, a specialist for individual insurance solutions in the area of motor vehicle, property and liability insurance, will remain as a branch of the Nürnberger Group in Germany, but will become a close cooperation partner of the Merkur Group in the future.

The DORDA team advises on all legal aspects of the transaction and in addition to Felix Hörlsberger and Christian Ritschka includes Magdalena Nitsche (attorney, insurance law), Heinrich Kühnert (partner, competition and antitrust law), Andreas Zahradnik (partner, banking and capital markets law, compliance), Mike Schaunig (associate, M&A), Sarah Pichler and Anna Martseva (associates, insurance law), Alexandra Ciarnau (attorney, data protection, IT/IP), Elisabeth Reiner (attorney, banking & capital markets, compliance) Markus Buchleitner and Alexander Capka (associates, real estate law), Günther Posch and Lisa Kulmer (attorneys, labour law) and Patricia Backhausen (attorney, M&A, corporate law).

Felix Hörlsberger: "I am pleased that we were able to assist Merkur in substantially expanding their product portfolio in the area of personal insurance and combining the expertise of two market pioneers."

Other advisors involved:

Merkur: Deloitte Financial Advisory (Lead Financial: Thomas Göritzer and Johannes Riemer; Lead Actuarial Mathematics: Karin Lackner and Christof Peternell) and Deloitte Tax (Lead: Christoph Riegler and Magdalena Lenz)

NÜRNBERGER: KPMG Law (Wendelin Ettmayer, lead, as well as Stephanie Sauer, Dieter Buchberger, Andreas Flaig, Stephanie Heimel)