We’ve all seen the talking baby ad, and after a few weeks of intense marketing Promina says it has received a satisfactory response to its $2.1 billion interim public offer.

CEO Michael Wilkins told the Seven network’s Sunday Sunrise program that the company has been doing a PR “roadshow” during last week’s IPO launch period. “I’ve got to say, I’ve been very pleased with the response,” he said.

Royal & SunAlliance in the UK want to raise about $2.1 billion by selling Promina to the public, which will make it the world’s largest float this year.

“Investors are seeing we’ve got a low-risk portfolio of investments here – we have no equities in our portfolio,” Mr Wilkins said. And he believes investors are beginning to understand that the general insurance sector is showing some positive characteristics.

While much of the pre-IPO publicity has been based around the group’s high-profile performers like AAMI, Mr Wilkins defended including financial services arm Tyndall in the float. He said Tyndall isn’t a hindrance. The company was originally put on the market last year but failed to attract a buyer; now it will be retained as an integral part of Promina.

“It’s profitable in its own right,” he said. “We didn’t see any inflows into that business even though we had a superior performance last year. We’ve started to see the inflows turn around because of the certainty of ownership.”

Mr Wilkins also discussed the asbestos exposures Promina has through its commercial insurance business. “We took a charge of $100 million in 2002, which brings our total reserves to $126 million for asbestos,” he said. “We believe that is appropriate.”

Mr Wilkins also denied that Promina will make any acquisitions this year.