“We didn’t have to merge,” but the sale of PMA Capital Corp., Blue Bell, to Chicago-based Old Republic International Corp. will be better for shareholders “than if we stood alone,” PMA boss Vincent Donnelly told me this morning.
Half of PMA’s 1,300 workers are based in Blue Bell and other Pennsylvania offices, and Donnelly expects most will keep their jobs, including him and his management team. With $4 billion in yearly sales, Old Republic is about 10 times PMA’s size.
Donnelly expects his company will stay in business as an independent unit of Old Republic. Spun off by the once-powerful Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, the business lobbying group, in the 1990s, PMA’s attempts to diversify its businesses brought losses in four of the six years between 2001-08. Donnelly, who previously headed the workers’ comp business, has sold other assets like PMA Reinsurance since taking the top job in 2003.
As the insurance arm of the manufacturers’ lobby, PMA in the early 1900s pioneered workers’ compensation insurance in the state, ensuring hurt workers got paid something, while also immunizing their bosses from more expensive personal-injury lawsuits.
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