Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance plc was a large British insurance company. It was listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

and was a constituent of the

FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest marke ...

History

The company was established through the merger of the

Guardian Assurance Company The Guardian Assurance Company was a British insurance company based in London and formed in 1821 to offer both life and fire insurance. Through a combination of organic growth and acquisition it became one of the leading insurance companies. In ...

and Royal Exchange Assurance in 1968. In February 1998 it acquired ''PPP Healthcare'', a private

healthcare Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health pro ...

insurer, for £435m. In February 1999 it was acquired by

Axa Axa S.A. (styled as ''AXA'' or GIG in the Middle East) is a French multinational insurance company. The head office is in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. It also provides investment management and other financial services. The ...

of France for $5.7bn and integrated into its Sun Life & Provincial Holdings division. It was subsequently announced that the company would move out of the Royal Exchange Building. The life assurance business was acquired by Aegon later that year.Aegon plans further deals after GRE buy
''The Independent'', 13 August 1999

References

External links

Axa PPP Healthcare - Health Insurance
Insurance companies of the United Kingdom Financial services companies based in London Financial services companies established in 1968 Financial services companies disestablished in 1999 Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Axa {{UK-finance-company-stub