Safeco Life reborn as '47-year-old start-up'.The president and newly appointed chief executive officer of Symetra Financial Corp., formerly known as Safeco Life & Investments, says there are plenty of opportunities ahead for the former Safeco Corp. unit, and its shareholders, customers, distribution channels and employees. "We are a start-up (company) that starts out with a billion, 150 million in statutory capital and 2 million customers--and that is day one," said Randy H. Talbot, quipping that Symetra Financial, the marketing/trade name for Symetra Financial Corp., "is a 47-year-old 'start-up.'" The name for the newly independent company was announced Aug. 3. On Sept. 1,2004, the company began doing business as Symetra Financial in approved states. Symetra Financial Corp., currently located in Redmond, Wash., is the recently formed holding company that acquired Safeco Corp.'s life/investments unit on July 31, 2004, for approximately $1.35 billion in cash. Safeco Corp. sold those operations to focus on its core property/casualty lines. Symetra Financial is owned by a private investor group led by White Mountains Insurance Group White Mountains Insurance Group is a holding company with business interests in property and casualty insurance, and reinsurance. The group owns the direct marketing insurer Esurance. External links
prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. White Mountains. Symetra also secured committed bank financing of up to $350 million. At the time the acquisition was announced, White Mountains and Berkshire Hathaway were each to own 24% of the company. Symetra will remain a Washington State-based company, he said. The company announced Aug. 3 that it signed 10-year leases with EOP-Northwest Properties LLC (Logical Link Control) See "LANs" under data link protocol. LLC - Logical Link Control and Three Bellevue Center Bellevue Center is a regional shopping mall in the western Nashville, Tennessee suburb of Bellevue, Tennesee. It has over 90 stores on two floors totaling 848,545 square feet. LLC, formalizing plans for new corporate headquarters in downtown Bellevue, Wash. Safeco's Redmond campus, Symetra Financial, and its approximately 1,000 Puget Sound Puget Sound (py  `jĕt), arm of the Pacific Ocean, NW Wash., connected with the Pacific by Juan de Fuca Strait, entered through the Admiralty Inlet and extending in two arms c. employees, will move to Bellevue's Rainier Plaza office tower and Key Center in the summer of 2005. Talbot said that the Rainier Plaza tower will be renamed Symetra Financial Center. |
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