INSURANCE

Switzerland’s biggest insurance company, Zurich Group, said that it agreed to buy New York-based Scudder, Stevens & Clark, the U.S. asset management and mutual fund company, in a deal worth about $2.4 billion. The transaction would combine Zurich Group’s Chicago-based Zurich Kemper Investments Inc. unit, which has $80 billion in assets under management, with privately held Scudder’s $120-billion mutual fund and asset management business. The move, Zurich’s second major purchase of an investment firm in less than two years, highlights its determination to be a force in investment management in the United States, which accounts for 45% of the world’s investment assets. Zurich Chief Executive Rolf Hueppi said the acquisition would slightly dilute earnings in 1998, becoming neutral in 1999. He estimated that write-offs related to the purchase would total $30 million to $40 million over the next 20 years or so.