Allstate seeks deals amid cheaper market, CEO says

Allstate Corp. Chief Executive Officer Thomas Wilson said the insurer may take advantage of the increase in takeover targets and a decline in the cost of buying rivals.

"We are relatively cheap in terms of what we are prepared to pay, but there are more properties on the market," Wilson said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Acquisitions "are cheaper today than they were three years ago, so we are always looking."

Allstate hasn't announced an acquisition since buying General Electric Co.'s Partnership Marketing Group to expand its roadside assistance unit in June 2008. Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher said corporate mergers and acquisitions may see a rebound next year as markets improve.

"The elements are in place for a resurgent M&A market in 2010," Kelleher said last week at a conference in New York. "Our backlogs are strong."

Allstate, based in Northbrook, was said to be a suitor for Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc's insurance units last year. The Edinburgh-based bank said this month it would put its insurance assets back on the block after the British government increased its bailout of the company to 45.5 billion pounds ($76.48 billion).

"The economic situation actually helps us because it opens up more opportunities," Marsh & McLennan Cos. Chief Executive Officer Brian Duperreault said in an interview Nov. 4. "More companies might be willing to join us than might have otherwise. It accelerates the process. It doesn't hurt, it helps."