PhillyDeals: Cigna buys Belgium insurer, doubling its expatriate business

Cigna Corp., the Philadelphia-based health insurer, is looking abroad for customers.

Tuesday it bought Vanbreda International, a privately owned firm based in Antwerp, Belgium, that insures people who work in other countries. The deal doubles Cigna's expatriate business so it now covers 700,000 people, making it "the largest provider of expat benefits in the world," spokeswoman Gloria Barone told me.

Cigna picks up 400 Vanbreda workers, mostly based in Europe. Vanbreda sales topped 50 million euros last year. Neither firm would say what Cigna paid.

In the U.S., Cigna is squeezed between rising health care costs and a weak economy that makes it harder for domestic employers and consumers to pay their bills, J.P. Morgan Securities analyst John Rex noted in a report earlier this month.

This is Cigna's second deal since David Cordani took over as chief executive in December. Prior to that, there had been none since 2007.

More deals soon? "We would consider M&A activity, with a focus on acquiring capabilities and scale," as more attractive than buying back shares to boost the stock price, chief financial officer Annmarie Hagan told investors in a conference call Aug. 5.

Manulife Field?

Analysts questioned the rumor and Manulife's financial ability to support a big merger. Lincoln (which owns naming rights to the Eagles' stadium, as would any successor) has been attracting would-be matchmakers: In June, Sanford Bernstein analyst Suneet Kamath suggested another Canadian insurer, Sun Life, run by ex-Lincoln boss Jon Boscia, as a Lincoln buyer.

Sun Life is "more solvent" than Manulife, but Boscia's current company is "not focused on U.S. acquisitions," says Matt Taylor, portfolio manager at investment firm Cheswold Lane in West Conshohocken.

Taylor traces last week's Lincoln rumor to a document Manulife filed with securities regulators confirming it's looking to borrow money and sell stock so it can afford to do deals.