Krispy Kreme owner aims to buy Shenandoah Life

RICHMOND — The Luxembourg investment firm that's the major stockholder in Krispy Kreme wants to buy Roanoke-based Shenandoah Life and its affiliated firms.

JAB Holding told the State Corporation Commission that it is proposing to pay $3.1 billion to acquire the Prosperity Life Group, the firm that brought Shenandoah Life out of receivership in 2012.

Shenandoah, founded in 1916 as a mutual insurer — a firm owned by its policyholders — had been hit hard by the Great Recession, and had to stop writing new policies until Prosperity stepped in, took it over and put some $60 million of its funds into the Roanoke insurer.

A.M. Best Co., which publishes ratings of insurers' financial strength, currently gives Shenandoah Life a A-minus, or excellent, grade.

JAB has more than $54 billion of assets, including investments in Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., Krispy Kreme Inc., the beauty products firm Coty Inc., and Panera Brands Inc., which runs the Panera Bread and Einstein Bagels chains.

The company told the SCC that it "is currently in the initial phase of building a U.S. life insurance business," with a proposed acquisition of Family Life Insurance Company, a Texas-based firm.

But the acquisition of Shenandoah and its parent company "is a significant next step in JAB Holding Company's plan to build its U.S. life insurance platform," the filing said.

JAB is indirectly controlled by Wolfgang Reimann, Matthias Reimann-Andersen, Stefan Reimann-Andersen and Renate Reimann-Hass, great-great grandchildren of the 19th century chemist Ludwig Reimann, who ran the German industrial chemicals firm Benckiser after marrying the founder's daughter.

The managing partner and chairman of JAB is Peter Harf, former chief executive officer of Coty, who had also served as chairman of Anheuser-Busch InBev and deputy chairman of Reckitt Benckiser, the British consumer goods firm that took over the German chemicals company the Reimann family ran from the mid-1800s.

Shenandoah Life had $1.96 billion in assets as of December 31, its annual report with the SCC Bureau of Insurance shows.

The company's main business these days is selling annuities — contracts that make regular payments to buyers, funded by investment income from the money buyers invested in them. Of last year's $315 million in premiums collected, $278 million were for annuities. Life insurance accounted for $19 million and health insurance — basically, Medicare supplement policies — another $18 million.

Shenandoah is part of the Prosperity Life Group, currently a holding of Elliott Investment Management, a firm that handles more than $69 billion of investments from pension plans, foundations and other institutional investors as well as wealthy individuals.

Prosperity's other insurers are SBLI USA Life Insurance, S.USA Life Insurance and National Western Life Insurance.