South Africa's London-listed life assurer Old Mutual Plc. announced that it has entered into an agreement to buy Sage Life (Bermuda) Ltd., a specialist provider of customised and proprietary annuity products to non-US residents.

Sage Life Bermuda is South African financial services group Sage's Bermuda subsidiary. The purchase price has not been disclosed. Sage Life (Bermuda) will provide Old Mutual with a new sales channel to complement its existing dollar-based product lines, the insurer said.

"We are building on the success of Old Mutual in the US insurance market," said Guy Barker, chief executive of Old Mutual US Life. "The purchase of Sage Life (Bermuda) complements our existing product lines and distribution system. Old Mutual will build on the strengths of Sage Life (Bermuda) and will invest for the success of a much stronger and re-branded company."

Old Mutual plans to retain the current sales and marketing management, as well as maintain all current sales contracts in force. In addition, operations and sales of existing products will continue and the company intends to continue to support the existing distribution network, it said.

Denis Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer of Sage Life (Bermuda), said: "By partnering with a financial giant like Old Mutual, we can focus on serving our distribution partners as well as our customers and will consider expanding our product offerings in the near future."

Sage announced in January that it had been decided that its US and Bermuda operations would not take on any new business. It later said it had received and was examining a number of proposals for the purchase of the two operations and that negotiations were expected to be completed by early March. However, in a statement late last month, Sage said that negotiations for the disposal of the United States operations had not been successfully concluded.