Insurance
The art of the deal
How F. Robert Woudstra handled a $1.9 billion acquisition at Farmers Group
By Mike Cottrill
Smart Business | October 2009
Page 1 of 4
F. Robert Woudstra has been bought and sold so he knows what it feels like.
Nearly a decade ago, he was an executive about to be acquired by insurance powerhouse Farmers Group Inc.
Sitting across the table from Farmers, he had his own concerns about how being acquired would affect his career and his people, but he was quickly impressed with the empathy, thoroughness and welcoming nature of Farmers. In fact, he was impressed enough to stick around and eventually become the company’s CEO.
So as Farmers began the process to acquire 100 percent of American International Group Inc.’s U.S. Personal Auto Group, which includes 21st Century Insurance, the first dance was one Woudstra took slowly.
“When I first sat down with them, I said, ‘Well, the first thing I can tell you is in the year 2000 I was you, because I was part of an organization that was acquired by Farmers,’” he says.
Farmers announced the completion of the deal on July 1, 2009, at a purchase price amounting to approximately $1.9 billion. It’s the company’s fourth acquisition over the last nine years and certainly the largest in its history. But while 21st Century employees were pleased to take their successful unit away from the troubled AIG name, the whole process wasn’t easy and it wasn’t quick. Woudstra and his senior leadership team did a lot of work behind the scenes making sure the two pieces would come together into a stronger whole, and that meant legwork from the business end as well as from the standpoint of both groups of people. Once Woudstra did that, Farmers was able to roll out the acquisition in a way that was welcoming to 21st Century and thoroughly explained to both groups.
