Exiting in 2020: The Singlife-Aviva Singapore M&A process

The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting economic recession have posed unprecedented challenges for startups in Southeast Asia, with many being forced to cut costs or even shut down completely. But despite these setbacks, the region also had its share of good news, such as the successful exit of Singlife, a Singapore-based digital life insurance firm.

In late November, Singlife announced that it had completed a US$2.3 billion merger with Aviva Singapore. Reportedly one of Southeast Asia’s largest insurance deals and the biggest in Singapore to date, the merger was certainly a huge achievement for a startup that was founded just six years ago.

Singlife co-founder and CEO Walter de Oude spoke exclusively at our “Exiting 2020” event on December 17, which was specially curated for our Tech in Asia Live and Core subscribers. It was a hybrid event where participants could join either virtually or physically at The Great Room.

We had an interesting and candid conversation with de Oude about what the merger process was like and the lessons he learned from the experience. He also shared some advice for founders who are navigating the complicated sale process themselves.

Session overview

In the early days of Singlife, exiting was the last thing on de Oude’s mind. Instead, he concentrated on adding value and creating a product that he could be proud of.

When asked why he decided to establish Singlife in Singapore, de Oude cited two key factors. First, he believes that the city-state is the epicenter of wealth in Southeast Asia, making it the perfect place to grow a high-net-worth insurance business. Second, the country’s insurance industry was lagging behind on technology adoption, and he saw a huge opportunity in digitalizing the field.

We then zoomed in on the negotiations and due diligence for the deal. De Oude shared that it was an extremely complicated process that was further slowed down by Covid-19. Although the conversation on merger first started in October 2019, the deal was only finalized in November 2020. “There must have been 30, 40 times that I thought this was never going to happen,” de Oude revealed.

Like other startups, the company had to look away from the big picture and go on survival mode. Singlife also had a complicated stakeholder and board structure. With so many voices around the table, de Oude had to make sure that everyone was heard, without sacrificing customer satisfaction.

Nevertheless, overcoming such challenges only made de Oude a stronger founder and Singlife’s merger deal all the more impressive. But he also acknowledged that he couldn’t have done it alone, expressing gratitude to his supportive family and co-workers for making it all possible.

De Oude then offered some insights on exiting to fellow founders. A memorable one is to be passionate about the job and focus on working hard, instead of being fixated on selling and cashing out. “You’ll probably never get there because you won’t be doing what needs to be done, which is to build cool stuff.”

While this may be counterintuitive in the profit-driven world of business, de Oude believes that the main goal should be to define and add value to the end-user. As he puts it, “Exits cannot be engineered. They happen at the right time because people noticed.”

Wrapping up the event was a Q&A session, where participants asked de Oude questions such as:

• If there’s one thing in this process that you could do all over again, what would that be?
• How can startup founders prepare for the due diligence process?
• What can we expect from Singlife in the next 35 years?

2020 certainly hasn’t been an easy year, but the resilience of some startups proves Southeast Asia’s high potential as a hub for building and selling great businesses.

Catch up on the full session

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