CPIC’s unit Pacific Asset Management Co. (CPIC AMC), has agreed to pay 1.05bn yuan ($152m) for the controlling stake in the asset manager which was sold by Guotai Junan Securities Co, one of the largest investment banks on the mainland.
It will now share the ownership of the mutual fund joint venture with Allianz Group, which holdss ther remaining 49%.
The sale price was equal to the initial bid price submitted under the public tender at Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange, since there was no other competitor, the Hong Kong- and Shanghai-listed insurer said in a filing to the bourse.
GTJA Allianz Fund Management was set up in April 2003 as the first sino-foreign fund management joint venture approved in China.
It has RMB41.1bn ($6.0bn) of assets under management as of the end of last year, down from RMB44.1bn a year earlier.
Guotai Junan announced in 2014 that it would increase to 40% its holdings in another mutual fund house, Huaan Funds, and become its biggest shareholder, but the transaction is still pending regulatory approval. The main obstacle is that a firm is not allowed to control two mutual fund houses in China.
Allianz Group has also formed a health insurance joint venture with CPIC in the late 2014.
In another recent deal in this sector, Power Corporation of Canada doubled its stake in China Asset Management (ChinaAMC), the second largest onshore mutual fund house, to 20% in December 2016.
