China Pacific targets selling Pacific Antai Life stake for $142mln

Chinese insurers cannot bid while foreign companies can bid for no more than a 20% stake.

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co. is selling its 50% stake in an insurance joint venture with Dutch financial company ING Groep NV (ING) for CNY943 million ($142 million) to streamline its business.

The sale is part of broader efforts by Chinese insurers to eliminate internal competition, and comes after China Life Insurance Group Co. sold its 51% stake in a Shanghai-based insurance venture with Commonwealth Bank of Australia last year to Bank of Communications Co.

China Pacific, the country's third-largest life insurer by premiums, said in a statement on the Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange's website that it aims to sell the stake in Pacific Antai Life Insurance Co. to a consortium led by a commercial bank with net assets of no less than CNY200 billion ($29.98 billion), and the consortium should comprise at least four companies.

Chinese insurers can't bid for the stake as the government hopes to reduce competition between local insurers, while foreign companies can bid for no more than a 20% stake, the statement said.

The statement said China Pacific Insurance will accept bids within 20 working days from Friday.

Pacific Antai Life Insurance was established in 1998 by China Pacific Insurance and U.S. financial group Aetna Inc. In 2000, ING acquired Aetna's stake in the venture when it took over the Asian operations of the U.S. company.

View the full story in Dow Jones Deutschland.