China investors to snap up AIA stake
A CONSORTIUM of Chinese financial services companies are eyeing a 30 per cent stake in AIA, the Asian arm of US insurance giant AIG, ahead of its planned listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange later this year.
The consortium – thought to include Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the China Life insurance company, China Cinda Asset Management, Fosun Group and Hony Capital – would have to stump up around $10bn (£6.4bn) for the stake, based on AIA’s estimated $30bn value.
The plans come just months after UK insurance group Prudential’s high-profile $35.5bn bid for AIA collapsed in tatters.
Bailed-out AIG is planning to list AIA in Kong Kong later this year, in a move which is expected to raise about $15bn.
It is thought to have lined up Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as joint global coordinators for the IPO.
The firm is understood to have been actively seeking pre-IPO investments from Chinese investors as a security net for the offer, making it easy for AIG and its advisers to get the rest of the shares away to traditional institutions and mutual funds.
AIA just last month announced the shock appointment of the former head of Prudential, Mark Tucker, as its new chief executive, tasked with overseeing the upcoming listing.
Tucker, 53, was a major player in the growth of Prudential’s Asian business. He held the chief executive’s position from 2005 until he quit in 2009.