KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 2): General insurer Berjaya Sompo Insurance Bhd said it is constantly on the lookout for potential acquisition targets, in response to the government’s call for greater sector consolidation.

“We are constantly on the lookout for acquisition targets. We wouldn’t close the door (on an opportunity), but we’ll have to look at the timing and pricing. If there are good opportunities, it is something that we will definitely look at,” its chief executive officer Tan Sek Kee told a press conference here today.

He said the group is focused on growing its gross written premium to RM1 billion by 2019, from RM765 million last year. In 2017, the group registered a 4.9% growth, from RM729 million in 2016.

On Sept 28, Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Datuk Nor Shamsiah Yunus said she believed there is room for further consolidation in the insurance industry. "Our economy is in need of transformational change in the insurance sector — not incremental ones," she was reported as saying at the recent Malaysian Insurance Institute Summit on "Innovation in a Disruptive Era".