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’M&A hots up in Asian insurance
Insurance – and particularly life insurance – has become one of Asia’s hotbeds for M&A activity. Here are just some of the deals or bids reported in the last month or so alone:
The biggest – and as yet unresolved – bid is the unsolicited A$11bn ($10.2bn) bid by Axa and Australia’s AMP on November 9 for Axa’s majority-owned Asian business,
That mysterious BofA/CCB stake sale
The market rumour-mill was working overtime in Asia late on Wednesday about big business in shares in China Construction Bank. The chatter followed Tuesday’s news of Bank of America’s $7.3bn disposal of more than a third of its stake in CCB to a small group of investors led by buyout firm Hopu Investment Management,
China’s insurers help pry open the private equity floodgates
The cause of private equity in China is about to receive a huge boost if China’s biggest insurer, China Life, and the country’s biggest property insurer, PICC Group, have anything to do with it. China Life is pressing the government to allow insurance companies to invest in the country’s fledgling domestic private equity sector,
Next on China’s shopping list: A western insurer or two
With insurance premiums in China rising a whopping 24 per cent in the first nine months of this year, according to Bloomberg, it is little wonder that Chinese insurers are now turning their sights on western counterparts.
China Life gets off to flying start
Shares in China Life, the latest Chinese IPO to skyrocket, more than doubled following its debut on Tuesday on the Shanghai and Hong Kong markets, notes Lex.
That makes it bigger, and more expensive than most of its better known peers: