Mauritius’ Biggest Insurer Seeks to Expand Market Share in East Africa

Mauritius’s biggest insurer, having won a $10 million investment from France’s Proparco this month, is aiming for a 10% market share in a number of East African markets after outgrowing its Indian Ocean island home.

MUA Ltd., which made acquisitions to bolster its presence on the African mainland in 2014 and 2020, expects most of future growth to come from the East African countries where it operates — Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, according to Bertrand Casteres, its chief executive officer.

“Mauritius is a tiny stone in the Indian Ocean,” Casteres said in an interview from Port Louis, the capital, on Monday. “The premiums from Africa will get bigger and bigger in the coming years.”

While the sale of a 7.3% stake to Proparco, a unit of the Agence Francaise de Developpement, is likely to help it win market share, it has put further geographical expansion on hold for now, the CEO said.

“In the next two or three years our priority, given the investments in East Africa, more than 50% of our equity base, is to create value out of our investments,” Casteres said. “We keep our ears open, our eyes open to see whether there is any other opportunity in another market but that’s not our priority at the moment.”

MUA bought Phoenix Transafrica Holdings, which had operations in several East African countries, in 2014 and acquired Saham Kenya in 2020.

MUA now has a market share of 25% in Mauritius, 15% in Rwanda and 3% in Kenya. Because Kenya is a “fragmented market,” MUA may be satisfied with market share of 5%, Casteres said.

Casteres will step down in September and remain as a consultant. By then, he said, his replacement will have been named.

Photograph: Commercial high-rise office buildings in Nairobi, Kenya, on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020. Photo credit: Fredrik Lerneryd/Bloomberg

Topics Carriers