(Business in Cameroon) - The Morocco-based insurance company, RMA Watanya, has just announced the acquisition of four insurance companies operating in “three key countries” of the Inter-African Conference of Insurance Markets (CIMA), the insurance sector watchdog in Central and West Africa.

The insurance subsidiary of FinanceCom, Othman Benjelloun’s company specified that the three countries of the CIMA zone were “targeted due to their market size and their level of development” without revealing the countries in question or the identity of the new acquisitions.

Media sources have suggested that the companies are the four subsidiaries of the Cote d’Ivoire Group, Belife Insurance: Beneficial Life Insurance S.A Cameroun and Beneficial General Insurance S.A Cameroun, in which the Moroccan company acquired 38% for 3.1 billion FCfa (approximately 6.2 million dollars); then Beneficial Life Insurance S.A Togo and Belife Insurance S.A Côte d’Ivoire. Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon are the two top markets within the CIMA zone. Togo sits in 7^th place.

RMA Watanya notes in its press release that the acquisitions are the first step on the road to greater African development. The group’s goal is “to be present in over ten African countries at the end of a decade and to target a cumulated level of 400 to 500 million dollars (200 to 250 billion FCfa) in surplus.”

Note that FinanceCom is already operational in Sub-Saharan Africa’s financial sector, particularly in Cameroon through its BMCE subsidiary which acquired the Bank of Africa, one of the continent’s main banking networks, in 2008.