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Huaxia Life is in talks for a sale to Ping An, as Chinese regulators pick apart the financial empire of missing tycoon Xiao Jianhua
- The discussions have been continuing for many months, but no progress has been made because of price issues, sources said
- Huaxia’s earlier sale of a 25 per cent stake to Shenzhen-listed Zhongtian Financial Group in 2017 is yet to be completed
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Ping An Insurance (Group), China’s biggest insurer by value, is in talks to buy Huaxia Life Insurance from missing Chinese financier Xiao Jianhua, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
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Talks between the two parties had gone on in fits and starts for several months since last year, stalling over the asking price of Huaxia, which claims to have 500 billion yuan (US$71 billion) in assets, with half a million employees in 24 nationwide branches, according to the sources.
The talks mark the latest attempt by China’s financial authorities to break up Xiao’s financial empire, after the financier was persuaded to return to mainland China from Hong Kong on the eve of the 2017 Lunar New Year to help with investigations into his financial affairs. At its apex, Xiao’s Tomorrow Group held stakes in hundreds of companies, including more than 10 banks, the banking regulator said in June.
“We do not comment on rumours,” Ping An’s co-chief executive Jessica Tan Sin-yin said last week after a results press conference in Hong Kong. Huaxia would not comment.
Xiao was ordered to divest about 150 billion yuan of assets to repay bank loans last year, after having sold 100 billion yuan in assets in 2017. Earlier this month, HengFeng Bank became the second bank in Xiao’s financial empire to be taken over by the state authorities after Baoshang Bank in Inner Mongolia’s Baotou city was nationalised on May 24.
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