(Bloomberg) -- Peter Wood was having a great week. Then along came Amazon.
The entrepreneur agreed to sell autos-to-pets insurer Esure Group Plc to Bain Capital Private Equity LP for a 37 percent premium on Tuesday, in part because of its willingness to invest in the company's digital business. Two days later, Reuters reported that Amazon.com Inc. is considering setting up a U.K. insurance comparison website, sending Wood's Gocompare.com Group Plc down more than 10 percent.
Wood, 71, created Esure in 2000 after making his name as co-founder of Direct Line, the U.K.'s first insurer that operated via telephone only. He's currently the biggest shareholder in both Esure and Gocompare.com, the price comparison website that was spun out of Esure two years ago.
Gocompare.com, which has a market value of about 447 million pounds ($568 million), was down more than 6 percent in London trading as of 8:06 a.m, making it the biggest loser in the FTSE All Share Index. Competitor Moneysupermarket.com fell as much as 4.7 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Neil Callanan in London at ncallanan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Neil Callanan at ncallanan@bloomberg.net, ;Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Ross Larsen
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