{"id":608869,"date":"2026-07-28T21:22:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T21:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/608869\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T21:22:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T21:22:23","slug":"irish-aviva-shareholders-targeted-by-us-firm-seeking-to-buy-stock-on-the-cheap-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/608869\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Aviva shareholders targeted by US firm seeking to buy stock on the cheap \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish shareholders in UK insurance giant Aviva <\/a>are being targeted by a US firm seeking to buy their shares on the cheap.<\/p>\n

Correspondence seen by The Irish Times shows Delaware-incorporated Litani LLC writing to Irish investors in Aviva, offering to buy their shares at \u00a35.30 (\u20ac6.19) a piece \u2013 even though they are currently changing hands on the London Stock Exchange at almost \u00a36.90. <\/p>\n

Litani is a so-called arbitrage firm that seeks to profit from buying shares at discount to their market price.<\/p>\n

Much of Aviva\u2019s Irish investor base stems from the initial public offering (IPO) of predecessor company Norwich Union in 1997. Some 150,000 Irish members of the one-time mutual insurer received shares before its demutualisation and flotation that year, according to reports from the time. <\/p>\n

Norwich Union merged in 2000 with rival CGU, which had just completed the cash-based purchase of Hibernian Insurance in Ireland, to become Aviva.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Aviva grows premiums in Ireland by 12% in first quarterOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Aviva has posted a warning on its website that it does not recommend investors take up Litani\u2019s offer, as it is not in their best interests. Officials from the UK Financial Conduct Authority also signalled last week that they are keeping tabs on Litani\u2019s approach to Aviva shareholders to make sure their communications are fair and clear. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make you aware that a company called Litani LLC may write, or may already have written, to you offering to buy some or all of your Aviva shares. Litani has told Aviva that it proposes to buy shares at 17.5 per cent below the market price, which means you would receive significantly less than the value of your shares,\u201d the Aviva website notice says. <\/p>\n

\u201cAviva has taken legal steps to try to prevent Litani from contacting shareholders, as we believe this offer is not in your best interests. Litani is not connected with Aviva, and we do not recommend accepting any such offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Litani is known to have been targeting small shareholders in Aviva for some weeks. The insurance group petitioned the High Court in London to allow it to block Litani from accessing its shareholder register because its contact was not for a \u201cproper purpose\u201d. However, the court dismissed Aviva\u2019s application, saying that while Litani\u2019s approach was \u201cavowedly commercial\u201d, mini-tender offers were not unlawful or subject to specific regulatory control.<\/p>\n

\u201cOffers like this, sometimes called \u2018mini-tender offers\u2019, typically involve buying shares at a lower price and then selling them on at the full market price, allowing the buyer to make a profit at shareholders\u2019 expense,\u201d the Aviva warning says. <\/p>\n

Litani made a similar tender offer to UK resident shareholders in Canadian-incorporated Sun Life Financial in July 2024. More than 580 shareholders accepted the offer and only one complained, the London High Court judgment in December noted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish shareholders in UK insurance giant Aviva are being targeted by a US firm seeking to buy their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[36394,79,18,19,3912,17],"class_list":["post-608869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aviva","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-insurance","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116999706904493089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}