Chinese regulator to bring strategic investors into Dajia Insurance Group, the firm that replaced fallen Anbang Insurance
- The banking and insurance regulator completed a two-year takeover of Anbang on Saturday
- The dramatic fall Anbang and its disgraced chairman is one of the most famous cases involving China’s clampdown on fast-growing debts accrued by aggressive private firms
China’s banking and insurance watchdog is in talks to introduce strategic investors into Dajia Insurance Group, the newly created firm that absorbed healthy assets from the troubled conglomerate Anbang Insurance Group.
The regulator “has basically secured social investors” to establish an appropriate shareholding structure for Dajia, just as it ended a two-year takeover of Anbang on Saturday, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) said in a statement.
In addition, all of Anbang’s short-term investment products, totalling 1.5 trillion yuan (US$213 billion), were paid back on time in January, it said.
Roping in private investors for Dajia would mark another significant step for Chinese regulators in resolving financial risks associated with the downfall of Anbang in an orderly and market-driven manner, after establishing the new firm in July on the basis of Anbang’s life insurance, pension and asset management businesses.
Anbang’s former chairman Wu Xiaohui, a financial magnate, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for financial fraud and embezzlement involving over 752 billion yuan (US$11 billion) in May 2018.
Prosecutors also found him to have fabricated financial statements and illegally absorbed capital from the public by selling insurance plans that were in fact investment products.