Analyst: "Everybody knows The Hartford is desperate"

The Hartford Financial Services Group, grappling with financial losses and ratings downgrades that can affect sales, is reportedly negotiating a possible sale of its life insurance and annuity operations to a major Canadian company.

The Hartford is currently in talks with Toronto-based Sun Life Financial Inc. and had separate discussions with MetLife Inc. that ended last month, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing three unnamed sources...

..."Everybody knows The Hartford is desperate," said Michael Paisan, an analyst and managing director at Stifel Nicolaus in New York, who predicted that the probability of the company's remaining intact "is very, very low." ...

Courant: Analyst Doubts The Hartford Will Be Able To Stay Intact