Jack Ma-backed Yunfeng broadens financial services with MassMutual’s insurance products
- Hong Kong-listed Yunfeng will expand its financial product offerings with life and health insurance policies from newly acquired MassMutual Asia
- Yunfeng will use in-house developed fintech to build financial services ecosystem
Yunfeng Financial Group, backed by Alibaba Group Holding executive chairman Jack Ma, will use fintech to sell insurance products of recently acquired MassMutual Asia, filling the gap in the Hong Kong-listed financial firm’s portfolio, the chief executive said.
“Yunfeng already has stock broking, wealth management and investment businesses,” said Li Tang in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post. “Only insurance was missing. Since it is difficult to build up an insurance business from scratch, we decided on the acquisition,” adding that it will use MassMutual’s 3,000 agents and its own financial platform to offer a wide range of life and pension products in Hong Kong and Macau.
Yunfeng has developed and uses fintech to deliver many of its services in securities trading, wealth management, employees’ shareholding service and investment research.
Yunfeng completed the US$1.7 billion MassMutual Asia acquisition on November 16, more than a year after it was announced in August 2017 – making it the industry’s largest takeover in Hong Kong by a mainland backed company, according to Refinitiv data.
Under the deal, Springfield, Massachusetts-based MassMutual International will become Yunfeng’s second largest shareholder, owning a 24.8 per cent stake. The deal, however, excludes MassMutual Asia’s Japan and mainland business.