The Blackstone Group completed the acquisition of the life insurance business of Allstate, an American insurance company, for $2.8bn. “Allstate is deploying capital out of lower growth and return businesses while continuing to execute our strategy to grow market share in personal property-liability and expand protection solutions for customers. Customers will be protected using non-proprietary life insurance products, as is currently done for annuities. Deployable capital will increase, and the transaction also provides increased transparency to the industry-leading returns of our core protection businesses,” Tom Wilson, Allstate Chair, President and CEO.