New Zealand’s Tower has completed the sale of its stake in its Papua New Guinea subsidiary to Alpha Insurance for 22 million kina ($9.58 million).

The price is higher than the $7.9 million originally announced in June.

Tower, which has operated in Papua New Guinea since 1980, acquired National Pacific Insurance in December and CEO Blair Turnbull says the sale will allow Tower to invest further in a streamlined Pacific operation in Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, the Cook and Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu.

“The seven pacific markets we continue to operate in offer us positive opportunities to progress our digital strategy,” Mr Turnbull said. Tower policies remain in place following the sale and all Tower PNG employees will be retained.

“We are pleased that our customers will now be served by a larger team in Papua New Guinea and will have access to Alpha Insurance’s extended product range,” Mr Turnbull said, noting Alpha already provides personal and business insurance products in PNG.

In the year to September, the PNG business had gross written premiums of $NZ8.7 million ($7.85 million) and net profit after tax of $NZ900,000 ($812,232), with net assets of $NZ4.7 million ($4.24 million).