Lack of regulatory approval prevented Pacific Century Insurance Holdings Ltd (PCIHL), one of the largest life insurers in Hong Kong, from taking a stake in the Shanghai-based Sino Life Insurance, PCIHL said.

 

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) did not permit the Pacific Century Insurance Co Ltd (PCI), a wholly owned subsidiary of PCIHL, to nominate three representatives to the board of Sino Life Insurance Co, the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong bourse yesterday.

 

PCI will be refunded HK$521 million (US$67 million), including principal and interest, for its payment of the notes.

 

The insurer in June signed an agreement to pay HK$508 million (US$65 million) for a 22.1 percent stake in Sino Life, the seventh-biggest Chinese insurer.

 

It had until yesterday to secure the CIRC's approval for the board representatives or the agreement would lapse.

 

Sino Life is already 24.9 percent held by Japan's Millea Holdings Inc. If PCI's plan succeeded, Sino Life would have turned into a joint-venture life insurer.

 

However, the failure to acquire a stake in Sino Life didn't daunt PCI's commitment to expand into China, where the life insurance market grew 15 percent to 370 billion yuan (US$46 billion) last year.

 

"The company will continue to look for suitable investment opportunities to gain access to the rapidly growing insurance market in China, and will continue to look for suitable investment opportunities that will benefit our stakeholders," said Peter So, deputy managing director and acting chief financial officer of the company.

 

PCI is one of many Hong Kong financial enterprises stepping up efforts to exploit the mainland's insurance sector, which has seen a 30 percent annual growth rate over the past two decades.

 

"Hong Kong players' unprecedented enthusiasm in the mainland's insurance sector is mainly due to the saturation of Hong Kong's life insurance market," said Wang Guojun, an insurance professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

 

Foreign insurance giants such as AIG and AEGON currently dominate the Hong Kong market, leaving limited room for domestic insurers.

 

This means many are turning to the mainland for business.

 

Dah Sing Life Assurance Co, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based Dah Sing Financial Group, will buy of a 20 percent stake in Great Wall Life Insurance Co, which started business late last year.

 

Asia Financial Holdings, also a major player in Hong Kong's financial sector, has a 10 percent stake in PICC Life Insurance Co, a new firm that began business last November.

 

Meanwhile, the HSBC bank, having acquired a 19.9 percent stake in Ping An Insurance, is thinking about establishing a joint venture insurance firm in the mainland this year.

 

A Standard & Poor's (S&P) overseas report indicated China's life insurance sector has long-term growth potential because of low penetration and increasing demand.

 

"As most Hong Kong insurers are small and medium-sized ones, they usually take a slice of the mainland market by buying into a domestic insurer," said Dong Chen, an analyst with China Securities.

 

PCIHL, which has been listed on Hong Kong index since July 1999, is the holding company of PCI that is funded mainly by local capital and managed by a team of home-grown professionals.

 

Principally engaged in individual life insurance, group insurance and asset management, PCI also acts as agent for The Ming An Insurance Co (Hong Kong) Ltd, as well as Asia Insurance Co Ltd, which provide comprehensive general insurance services.

 

PCI last week reported a 77 percent drop in its consolidated net profit in its annual report for 2005, down from HK$188.3 million (US$24.4 million) in 2004 to HK$42.5 million (US$5.5 million) last year.

 

Basic earnings per share were HK$0.05 compared to HK$0.23 in the previous year.

 

"The decrease in earnings was primarily due to the reclassification of the investment portfolio from 'trading' to 'available-for-sale' following the adoption of other new accounting standards," said the annual report.

 

(China Daily March 2, 2006)