Ping An Insurance, which began taking institutional orders for its domestic A-share listing yesterday, plans to develop into a full service financial group in the next three to five years by boosting its banking and asset management business to match its main insurance business.
Hong Kong-listed Ping An, in which HSBC holds 19.9 per cent, plans for the three segments to 'develop in a balanced way', said chief operating officer Louis Cheung yesterday. He expects new profit drivers will be consumer credit, enterprise annuity, health insurance and third-party asset management.
Ping An, the mainland's second-largest life and third-biggest non-life insurer, plans to raise as much as 38.9 billion yuan from its Shanghai IPO and use the proceeds to develop its core financial services, including the expansion of its insurance business as well as meeting demand from the banking and asset management segments.
The insurer planned to use its 30 million individual and two million corporate clients as a base to grow the banking service business such as credit cards, Mr Cheung said. It controls two banks, Ping An Bank and Shenzhen Commercial Bank which combined have just three outlets. But the firm had already received the qualification to open outlets nationwide and Mr Cheung said it would actively do so.
The insurer is also eyeing more diversified investment channels for its insurance capital, as well as quick growth in managing enterprises annuity and wealth management. It was one of the two asset managers awarded last month the Shenzhen government's 2.3 billion yuan enterprise annuity mandate.
The Shanghai listing, scheduled for around March 1, could attract more than one trillion yuan of orders, according to brokerage estimates, due to investor enthusiasm for the nation's insurance industry as well as the offer's lower than expected pricing range. Industrial bank, with listed earlier this week, had one trillion yuan in subscriptions, the most to date.