Germany-headquartered insurer Allianz is to acquire roughly 4% of China’s Taikang Life Insurance.
It has agreed to pay €800m (£690m, $882m) to Goldman Sachs for it, the Financial Times reported, which was confirmed to International Adviser by a spokesperson for the European company.
The move was described by Allianz as a “financial investment”.
The transaction was disclosed by Taikang Life in a financial statement.
Following the purchase, Goldman Sachs will keep an 8.6% stake in the Chinese group.
Asian expansion
Allianz has been taking steps towards tapping into the Chinese markets for a while, after it became the first foreign wholly-owned insurance holding company in the country last year.
It received approval from the China Banking & Insurance Regulatory Commission to form a business.
Additionally, the German insurer was also rumoured to be among a plethora of firms interested in taking over Aviva’s Singapore and Vietnam units, in a deal that could be worth up to $2.5bn (£1.9bn, €2.2bn).
Taikang Life was founded in 1996 and it claims to be one of China’s larges life insurers, and its website says it has around 4,000 branches in the country and employs approximately 800,000 members of staff.
