Ping An Insurance

Business

Ping An Insurance Group is the holding company of Ping An Life Insurance Company of China, Ltd. and Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance Company of China, Ltd. It also controls China Ping An Insurance Overseas (Holdings) Limited and Ping An Trust & Investment Co., Ltd. Ping An Insurance Overseas, located in Hong Kong, is a second holding company for subsidiary companies located outside of mainland China.

Ping An Trust & Investment has the subsidiaries of Ping An Securities and Ping An Bank.

Ping An began as only a casualty insurance company. Since the mid-1990s Ping An has been diversifying into financial services from its core business of insurance and began taking investments from overseas firms. Ping An accepted investments from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in 1994. In 2002 HSBC took a large equity interest in Ping An. In early 2008, Ping An agreed to take a 50% share in Fortis Investments, a subsidiary of Fortis, which had taken over ABN AMRO Asset Management as a result of the split up of ABN AMRO in late 2007, but the deal was cancelled in October 2008.

In June 2009, Ping An became a strategic investor in Shenzhen Development Bank, (now part of Ping An Bank). In 2016, Ping An invested more overseas. In January in 2017, Deputy Head Cai Lifeng resigned for persona reasons.

Ownership

Ping An has the classification as being a civilian-run enterprise. Richard McGregor, author of The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, said that "the true ownership of large chunks of its shares remains unclear" and that the ownership of Ping An is a "murky structure". In October 2012, The New York Times reported that relatives and associates of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao controlled stakes in Ping An worth at least US$2.2 billion in 2007. They paid the equivalent of 40 cents a share, others buying in the same time frame paid as much as $1.20. Thanks to favorable regulatory treatment and licensing, the firm was able to build a diverse financial firm with interests in insurance, brokerage, and banking.

HSBC acquired 48.22% of H shares by means of different HSBC subsidiaries (H share accounted for 34.83% of the share capital as at 31 December 2009, which was later increased to 41.88% in 2015 ). HSBC hold 16.80% of total shares of Ping An, making itself to be the biggest shareholder at 31 December 2009.

On 5 December 2012, HSBC announced to sell their entire 15.57% stake for HK$72.736 billion (approx. US$9.385 billion; HK$59.00 per share) to Thailand conglomerate Charoen Pokphand. The deal would split into to two phases, which the latter was subjected to the clearance from China Insurance Regulatory Commission, which would paid in cash and a loan from China Development Bank to Charoen Pokphand. In February 2013 Charoen Pokphand got the clearance. On 10 May in spite of a lack of loan from the state-owned China Development Bank to Charoen Pokphand, the deal was completed. According to HSBC, the transaction would increase Tier 1 Capital ratio of the bank for 0.5%, as well as a post-tax gain of US$2.6 billion. HSBC had an above average forecasted CET1 ratio of 8.5% in 2011 European Union bank stress test under the adverse scenario, nevertheless HSBC chose to strengthen its capital by selling Ping An. The actual ratio at 31 December 2012 was 12.3%, increased 2.2% year-to-yearly.

As at 31 December 2015, Shenzhen Government via Shenzhen Investment Holdings (Chinese: 深圳市投資控股) and Shum Yip Group (Chinese: 深业集团), still owned a combined 6.68% stake (5.27% + 1.41%) as the second largest shareholder, it was followed Huaxia Life Insurance (3.40%), Central Huijin Asset Management for 2.65% (a wholly owned subsidiary of state-owned Central Huijin Investment) and China Securities Finance for 2.07% stake. Although 40.74% share capital were H share, about 1.03% of total share capital were owned by mainland Chinese investors via Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect.

Markets

Since June 24, 2004 Ping An has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. SEHK: 02318 Now, it has a listing on stock exchange in Shanghai, SSE: 601318.

Ping An was chosen as an index stock of the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (HSCEI) replacing Anhui Expressway.

The Hang Seng Index Services Company announced on 11 May 2007 that Ping An would join as Hang Seng Index Constituent Stock (Blue Chip Stock) effective on 4 June 2007.

Operations

Ping An has operations across all of the People's Republic of China, and in Hong Kong and Macau through Ping An Insurance Overseas. Ping An has branches or a representative agent in 150 countries.

In 2010, Ping An's asset management arm implemented DST Global Solutions' Hiportfolio investment accounting system to run their back office operations.

Joint ventures

Ping An Trust, a subsidiary of Ping An Insurance, had a joint venture Ping An UOB Fund Management. The other shareholders were UOB Asset Management and Sanya Yingwan Tourism. Ping An UOB Fund was the limited partner of a private equity fund that acquired 23.81% shares of Rongyu Group.

Lufax is a Ping An Group-backed Chinese online lending platform.