POLAND - Aegon has agreed to acquire MunichRe's Polish pensions subsidiary Ergo Hestia for an undisclosed sum.

Ergo Hestia is part of the MunichRe's Ergo Group and has €561m of assets under management and 357,000 active members, an Aegon spokesman told IPE. He didn't disclose details of the transaction.

The firm will be re-branded PTE AEGON Poland.

The move came as Aegon disclosed its third-quarter figures. Sales of UK pensions was up 56%, and contributed 15% of new sales for the whole group. The strong sales - of both individual and group pensions - are partly attributable to Pension A-Day, with single premium pension sales more than doubling, it added.

Aegon also reported strong sales growth of individual life and pensions, and individual, small and medium-sized company pension schemes in the Netherlands. "The sales in the third quarter more than compensated for fewer large group pension contracts in the first nine months," it said.

According to Aegon, pension funds in Hungary and Slovakia showed ‘significant growth' as well. The numbers of new members in Hungary were up 49% to almost 44,000, bringing to the total to 617,000, it stated.

Membership of Aegon's pension schemes in Slovakia rose by 145,000 to 193,000, it said.

Aegon's operating performance before tax was up by 39%, although net income was down 4%, "due to lower gains on investments," it reported.

The value of new business rose by 22% to €503m. The internal rate of returns of new business is 14.8%, compared to 12.4% for the full 2005, the insurer said.

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