By Mark Kleinman, City Editor
The owners of Hastings, one of the UK's biggest motor insurance providers, are turning the ignition key on plans for a sale or stock market listing just 18 months after taking control.
Sky News has learnt that Hastings will this week kick off a 'beauty parade' of investment banks with the intention of appointing advisers to consider the company's options during the coming months.
Although a deal is unlikely to take place until later in the year, it would nevertheless represent a rapid exit for the merchant banking arm of Goldman Sachs, which acquired just under 50% of Hastings in October 2013.
Insiders said that the insurer, which was valued at approximately £700m by its last deal, was expected to seek a valuation "significantly closer" to £1bn in a future transaction.
Just under half of Hastings is owned by the company's founders, with the balance held by management, including Gary Hoffman, the chief executive, and employees.
Under Mr Hoffman's leadership, Hastings has seen rapid growth, reporting that customer numbers had reached 1.65m by the end of September last year, up from 1.35m 12 months earlier.
The company also announced increases in net revenue and market share, with adjusted pre-tax profit in the year to date up by 18%.
A stock market listing is expected to be the default choice for Hastings' management and shareholders, although recent takeover activity in other areas of the insurance sector will mean that they also remain open to an outright sale.
During the last deal, Goldman invested £150m in return for just under 50% of Hastings' equity, with Neil Utley, its chairman, crystallising a fortune worth tens of millions of pounds from the sale of part of his stake.
Hastings also raised approximately £420m from a bond sale at the same time.
Based in Bexhill, East Sussex, Hastings employs more than 1500 people, over 80% of whom are understood to be shareholders in the company.
Mr Hoffman led the turnaround of Northern Rock during its period in Government ownership following the run on the mortgage lender in the autumn of 2007, which heralded Britain's banking crisis.
He then spent two years as chief executive of NBNK Investments, a vehicle set up to acquire retail banking assets, but which was rebuffed in favour of the Co-operative Group in the contest to buy 632 branches from Lloyds Banking Group.
That deal collapsed amid a financial crisis at the Co-operative Bank, leading to the branches being rebranded as TSB and listed on the stock market.
A Hastings spokesman declined to comment on Monday.
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