(Reuters) - Dutch insurer Aegon said on Sunday it would sell its Central and Eastern European business to Vienna Insurance Group for 830 million euros ($993 million) to raise cash to cope with the fallout from the coronavirus crisis. Aegon said it had agreed to sell its insurance, pension and asset management business in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Turkey. The deal is set to close in the second half of 2021. “This transaction will simplify Aegon’s footprint and strengthen our balance sheet,” Aegon Chief Executive Officer Lard Friese said in a statement. In October, Reuters reported that the Dutch insurer had put its Eastern European business up for sale and was working with JPMorgan on the process. Aegon provides life and general insurance in Hungary, where it began working in 1992 with the acquisition of former state-owned insurer Állami Biztosító. It used the unit to make more acquisitions in Central and Eastern Europe. Aegon suffered a 30% drop in underlying pretax earnings in the first half of 2020 due to higher mortality and lower interest rates in the United States, where it owns the Transamerica brand and where it does two thirds of its business. Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirsten Donovan