Allez les Bleues

I did not have a lot of time for blogging lately for a number of reasons. One of them was the fact that we were going through the final stages of what felt like the 100th due diligence in about four years (our lawyer counted them and he thinks it's eleven in total; surely it must be more than that!). And on Tuesday night, when Germany had just lost against Italy, our company was finally sold to a French competitor. According to the marketing department we are creating a top-tier life reinsurer, reaching the position of fourth largest life reinsurer in the world. Wow!

I have to admit the French were not my preferred buyer, but at least they were my runner-up (over the last couple of months - apart from them - we have had the good, the bad and the ugly in the data room), so I can live with this outcome. And I will never know if "the good" would really have been better.

On Thursday the CEO of our new "maman" paid us a visit to welcome us into his company. I get weak knees when someone speaks German with a French accent, but managed to listen very carefully nevertheless. He said, it is not a take-over but a merger between two companies of equal size. He is "deeply European" and regards the new company as a European rather than a French company. The office in Germany will not be closed down, our jobs are safe. They are currently no. 1 in the French market, we are only no. 2 in Germany. Could we please rectify that asap! (May have sounded like a joke, I am sure it wasn't.)

Overall it didn't sound too bad, but it remains to be seen if he is true to his word.

Tomorrow I will support France to honour the occassion. Allez les Bleues!