Krispy Kreme parent company expands pet insurance stake Krispy Kreme parent company expands pet insurance stake

JAB Holdings Co., the parent of Krispy Kreme Inc., continues to expand its reach in the pet insurance sector by announcing Friday that subsidiary Pet Pinnacle Group plans to acquire Veterfina Verzekeringsmaatschappij NV, which operates as Veterfina in Europe.

Veterfina is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Terms were not disclosed for a transaction projected to close in the fourth quarter.

The JAB subsidiary will provide funding to accelerate the European expansion and development of Veterfina's multi-brand and omni-channel strategy. This will include the introduction of Figo, JAB's D2C pet insurance brand and digital platform, in select European markets.

Previously, the JAB subsidiary has acquired Agila Tierversicherung AG, the German market leader in pet insurance, and Cardif Pinnacle from BNP Paribas Cardif.

"We continue to see significant growth opportunities in the European pet insurance and pet health-care sector," said Joachim Creus, managing partner at JAB and chairman of the JAB pet insurance platform.

"Veterfina has a strong customer base and excellent product offerings in the Netherlands with a growing pan-European offering, which we will build on as we look to expand into new markets such as Belgium and France."

JAB's biggest transaction in the pet insurance sector was announced June 20, a $1.4 billion purchase of Crum & Forster Pet Insurance Group and Pethealth Inc. from Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.

Fairfax will receive $1.15 billion in cash in the transaction, while it has agreed to invest $200 million in JCP V, JAB's latest consumer fund.

C&F Pet insures more than 500,000 pets and markets or serves as underwriter for numerous brands, including ASPCA Pet Health Insurance, 24Petprotect, Hartville Pet Insurance, Spot Insurance Services and Pumpkin Insurance Services.

It also insures PetCoach LLC, the provider of Petco pet insurance plans in the United States and Pets Plus Us in Canada. Pethealth provides well-being and safety solutions to shelters and pet parents under the 24Pet brand, which includes the 24Petwatch Registry with more than 20 million registered pets.

JAB said at that time its combined global pet insurance and ecosystem platform will have gross written premiums and pet health services revenues of more than $1.2 billion by 2023, insuring more than 2.1 million pets.

In December, JAB closed on its Independence Pet Holdings insurance platform acquiring pet insurer Figo, which was made part of PetPartners, the consumer-facing portion of JAB's pet-insurance platform.

336-727-7376@rcraverWSJ