Nationwide, Harleysville CEOs Reassure Agents: Merger All About Growth

By and | September 30, 2011

  • September 30, 2011 at 2:07 pm
    Longtime Agent says:
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    Watch out Harleysville employees. I can see a downsizing and takeover with Nationwide in charge. It happens every time with mergers.

    • September 30, 2011 at 7:59 pm
      DJ says:
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      Are you saying a CEO would “bend the truth”? Both CEO’s promised to not lay off employees or change distribution system.
      If their lips were moving…you know the rest!

    • October 4, 2011 at 7:49 pm
      spider says:
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      Of course. What do you think? Nationwide is going to buy this and not look for cost-cutting or saving measures? Of course that is what this all about. Synergy = doing more with less, and that is the primary reason for acquisition. Rule No. 1, don’t buy unless you can find great areas of fat to trim, thereby making the operation you are buying an even greater deal. Don’t kid yourselves, THAT WILL HAPPEN here.

      • October 4, 2011 at 7:52 pm
        spider says:
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        OH, and let’s get this straight right here and right now. Just to be straight, there WILL NOT BE TWO CEO’s going forward. Yup, the fat trimming starts at the top, hits management levels that are duplicated, financial areas, auditing, reinsurance negotiation, etc., etc. These are all cost-saving areas that where any duplication will be eliminated, thereby making the deal even sweeter. It will happen.

        • October 5, 2011 at 11:10 am
          Ralph says:
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          I wouldn’t worry too much about the Harleysville CEO. Odds are good he has a buyout (and/or golden parachute). Also, look at how many shares the HV CEO owns (from Finance.Yahoo.Com) and do the math at street price vs. tender price. I computed about $4.5mm. I anticipate he will walk away with $6mm to $12mm once all is said and done, though I do not have any of the details. This is an educated guess, but probably a decent one. All that said, has anyone crunched the numbers to figure out how this deal makes sense at $60 a share (basically 2x the closing price for Harleysville prior to the announcement of the deal?) With a P/E of 22 noted at $30 a share, and with a noted purchase price of 1.6bb for $875mm in DWP, I just can’t make the math work on this one.

  • September 30, 2011 at 2:44 pm
    thomas j murphy says:
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    Ask Nationwide Ins. what happen to COLONIAL INS. CO. their employees and agents in southern california? this company was a personal lines carrier.

  • September 30, 2011 at 5:39 pm
    Sarah says:
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    Ask what has allready happened in the southeast for Harleysville. They have been without any real management for the last two years and let almost every good employee go. Nationwide needs to clean house and hire some of these people back, they were let go for no other reason but financial cut backs.

  • September 30, 2011 at 8:13 pm
    bb says:
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    IF THEIR CLAIMS SERVICE GETS AS BAD AS ALLIED’S CLAIMS SERVICE, WATCH OUT.

  • October 1, 2011 at 9:35 am
    Tigger Too (2) says:
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    Who do they think they are kidding with this statement: “For Harleysville, the merger is an opportunity to grow by expanding where Nationwide is strong, which is in the West and Midwest and in personal lines, and by giving its independent agency force access to a fuller menu of products”

    Harleysville will no longer exist other than the states where they are strong in the East. Allied will consume them in the Midwest and West. Agents who have Allied in Illinois, Wisconsin, etc., will see their Harleysville book reunderwritten and repriced, or if they do not have Allied they might be offered a contract to take on Allied.

    But this is good news for them, because Allied is the latest whore on the corner in the Midwest.



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