The US fund Blackstone has reached an agreement to acquire a 9.9% stake in the insurance and pension business of American International Group (AIG), the company announced Wednesday.

The deal, which is an important step in Blackstone’s efforts to enter the insurance sector, also means that the company will initially manage $50 billion in assets, which over the next six years will become $100 billion of this sector of AIG, which has a total of $200 billion in assets.

AIG, a global insurance conglomerate, is preparing to spin off this retirement pension division into a separate company so the parent can focus on property and casualty insurance, something it announced last October, the Wall Street Journal reported, according to EFE.

The transaction would catapult the value of Blackstone’s insurance business to about $150 billion in assets by the end of 2021 after another deal this year in which it bought the life insurance unit of Allstate Corp.

Blackstone’s acquisition comes after Apollo Global Management, a leader in the insurance sector, announced in March it was buying a portion of its affiliate Athene Holding, while KKR & Co acquired insurer Global Atlantic Financial Group in February.

Blackstone has thus joined the moves by large U.S. funds to move into the insurance division to handle capital that is considered more permanent.

Source: Expansión.