(Bloomberg) -- BE Group, an investment firm fronted by former bankers, has made a fresh attempt at a takeover of Belgium’s biggest insurer Ageas, people familiar with the matter said.

The consortium recently approached Ageas and has been trying to secure financing for a potential deal, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. Shares in Ageas rose as much as 3.5% in early trading on Friday. The stock was up 2.4% at 9:03 a.m. in Brussels, giving it a market value of €8.5 billion ($9.2 billion). 

BE Group has been chasing Ageas for some time. The insurer rebuffed an earlier approach from the investor group in the summer of 2020 without engaging. BE Group began exploring a new pursuit the following year. 

Any deal would rank as one of the biggest in the European financial services sector, but little-known BE Group may face difficulty winning over stakeholders in Belgium, where Ageas is a national champion in a heavily regulated industry. Ageas shares are little changed over the past 12 months amid a wider market rout. 

Ageas houses insurance assets previously owned by Fortis, the Belgian financial services giant bailed out during the 2008 financial crisis. Led by Chief Executive Officer Hans De Cuyper, Ageas offers property and casualty and life insurance in countries including Belgium, France and Portugal, as well as motor cover in the UK. 

It’s also one of the few European insurers with operations in the faster-growing Asia region, which it runs via partnerships with local players. Ageas generated total gross written premiums of roughly €6.6 billion in the first nine months of last year.

There has been market speculation for weeks about potential takeover interest in Ageas, including in early December on the Betaville website. Deliberations are ongoing and there’s no certainty they will result in a transaction, the people said. A spokesperson for Ageas declined to comment, while a representative for BE Group couldn’t be reached for comment. 

BE Group’s backers include ex-Lazard Ltd. banker Mark Pensaert, a Belgian national who’s a member of the Rabobank NA supervisory board, and Alexandre Kartalis, a director of investment firm Advanced Credit Solutions, the people said. Kartalis previously worked at banks including UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, according to ACS’s website.

Any takeover of Ageas would likely need the support of Chinese conglomerate Fosun International Ltd., which owns about 10% of the insurer. A Belgian government-owned investment company, known as SFPI-FPIM, acquired a 6.3% stake in Ageas last year to become the company’s second-biggest shareholder.

The value of financial services dealmaking fell almost a third in 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, in line with a broader drop-off in mergers and acquisitions activity globally. But a $2.3 trillion haul for the year was still the industry’s second-biggest on record, the data show.

--With assistance from Silas Brown, Laura Benitez and Claire Ruckin.

(Updates shares in second paragraph, adds deal data in final paragraph.)

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