Anbang Insurance Group (Chinese: ????; pinyin: ?nb?ng b?oxi?n) is a Chinese holding company whose subsidiaries mainly deal with insurance, banking, and financial services. The company was founded in 2004 as a regionally based property insurance business with its headquarters in Beijing. Its founding shareholders included state-owned car maker Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp., which held a 20% stake. In 2005 state-owned oil company Sinopec bought a 20% share.
As of February 2015, the company had assets worth more than CN¥800 billion (US$123 billion). The Financial Times has described Anbang as "one of China's most politically connected companies."
Anbang Insurance has more than 30,000 employees in China and is engaged in offering various kinds of insurance and financial products.
The Chairman, Wu Xiaohui, was detained in Beijing by government authorities on June 8, 2017 as an investigation of Anbang's activities.
Video Anbang Insurance Group
Overseas acquisitions
The company holds a geographically diversified portfolio of assets in financial services real estate and lodging.
- In 2014, Anbang Insurance acquired Belgium insurer, Fidea Verzekeringen.
- In 2014, Anbang Insurance purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York hotel from Blackstone for nearly US$2 billion.
- In 2015 Anbang purchased Dutch insurer Vivat from the Dutch state. They paid EUR150m outright, and agreed to infuse between EUR770m and EUR1bn in fresh capital, and to take on EUR550m of debt.
- In 2015 Anbang paid US$1 billion for a 57.5% stake in South Korea's Tongyang Life, an insurance company, in what was reported to be the first direct investment in a South Korean financial institution by a mainland China entity.
- In November 2015, Anbang announced that it would buy Iowa-based insurer Fidelity & Guaranty Life for about $1.57 billion.
- In February 2016, the Financial Post in Canada reported that is to purchase a 66% stake in four office towers of Bentall Centre in Vancouver from Ivanhoe Cambridge, a subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec; and subsequently remaining 33% stake in May 2016. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. But the price paid by Anbang is reported to value the property at over CAD$ 1 Billion.
- In March 2016, Blackstone agreed to a further US$6.5 billion sale of 16 landmark US hotels owned by the Strategic Hotels & Resorts REIT, including the historic Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, several Four Seasons resorts, and Manhattan's JW Marriott Essex House hotel.
- In April 2016, Anbang purchased Allianz's South Korea operations.
- In 2016, Anbang purchased Retirement Concepts, a Canadian company with 24 retirement homes in British Columbia, Calgary and Montreal.
Anbang has also made large-scale bids that did not culminate in a transaction. On March 14, 2016, a consortium led by Anbang made a US$14 Billion offer for Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. Other members of the consortium included J.C. Flowers & Co and Primavera Capital Group. The latter is headed by Fred Hu, the former Chairman of Greater China at Goldman Sachs. The bid was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2017, the company also ended talks to invest billions of dollars in a Manhattan office tower (666 5th Avenue) owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and a senior White House aide.
Maps Anbang Insurance Group
References
External links
- Official website
Source of article : Wikipedia