QBE QBE Insurance Group Limited

   By David Winning 
 

SYDNEY--QBE Insurance Ltd. (QBE.AU), swinging to a deep annual loss as expected, said it has agreed to sell its Latin American operations to Zurich Insurance Group AG (ZURN.EB) for US$409 million.

QBE said it expects to make a pretax profit of around US$100 million on the sale of the business, which includes operations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.

The Australia-based insurer said it would keep doing business in Puerto Rico to enable the servicing of claims from Hurricane Maria, and this operation would now become part of its North American division.

Details of the sale came as QBE separately announced a net loss of US$1.25 billion for the year through December, swinging from a net profit of US$844 million a year earlier. The result was expected after QBE said it late January that it would absorb several big charges tied its North American operation and the cost of California wildfires and December storms in Australia.

QBE said on Monday that it would pay a final dividend of 4 Australian cents per security for a full-year payout of 26 Australian cents.

-Write to David Winning at david.winning@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 25, 2018 16:04 ET (21:04 GMT)

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