New York Life Insurance To Buy Cigna's Group Life, Disability Insurance Business

(RTTNews) - New York Life Insurance Company has agreed to acquire Cigna Corp.'s (CI) group life and disability insurance business for $6.3 billion. The acquisition is anticipated to complete in the third quarter of 2020.

Cigna expects to realize approximately $5.3 billion of net after-tax proceeds from the transaction. The company plans to utilize proceeds for share repurchase and repayment of debt in 2020. Cigna expects the impact of the transaction to be neutral to earnings per share in 2020 and modestly accretive to earnings per share in 2021.

Cigna's Board has increased the company's share repurchase authority by $3.0 billion to an aggregate amount of $4.0 billion.