ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE: PRA) announced today that its acquisition of Eastern Insurance Holdings, Inc. (Eastern) was completed effective January 1, 2014. Eastern's shareholders overwhelmingly approved the transaction at a special meeting on December 27, 2013.
Under terms of a previously announced agreement, Eastern becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of ProAssurance through an all cash transaction that valued Eastern at $24.50 per share with a total transaction value of $205 million.
"With the completion of the Eastern transaction, we have taken a significant step toward our goal of building an insurance platform that will allow us to serve the emerging needs of policyholders and shareholders in the years and decades ahead," said ProAssurance's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, W. Stancil Starnes. He added, "We are confident that being able to provide our policyholders with a best-in-class workers' compensation solution will make us a more attractive insurance partner. We believe that Eastern will not only enhance the coverages we can offer, but will help us achieve attractive growth and underwriting profit throughout the insurance cycle. And while our focus in this transaction will be leveraging Eastern's long-term position in healthcare workers' compensation solutions and its proven track record in alternative risk transfer solutions, we also recognize the importance of the product line diversification the transaction will provide for the combined organization." Mr. Starnes also noted that ProAssurance expects the transaction to be modestly accretive to 2014 earnings before any one-time transaction related expenses.
