Both Rothesay and Swiss Re declined to comment. The news comes less than a month after Swiss Re, the world's second-largest reinsurer, named a chief executive officer for its ReAssure amid plans for an initial public offering of the British unit.
Swiss Re announced the IPO plans in August last year, saying it was important for the unit to have access to new capital to buy more closed books. Rothesay, which has been actively bulking up its portfolio, last year bought a 12-billion-pound ($15.20 billion) UK annuities book from insurance giant Prudential and an 860 million pounds portfolio of equity release loans from UK Asset Resolution.
Such deals are attractive as ever with insurers struggling to pay guaranteed returns for life insurance policies due to record-low interest rates and more stringent European capital rules. Analysts have pegged that ReAssure could achieve a market capitalisation of about $3 billion, or roughly half its book value.