China Life targets control over China Minsheng

Insurer’s chairman said it will strengthen non-insurance core businesses, including assets management, banking, securities, and trusts.

China Life Insurance is ambitious to control a bank in order to achieve its goal to develop into a comprehensive financial group, said Yang Chao, board chairman of the China Life.

China Life is the largest shareholder of the China Minsheng Bank and the Guangdong Development Bank (GDB), but it is not the controlling shareholder of the two medium-sized banks, said Yang.

Liu Jiade, vice president of China Life, said that China Life's investment in the GDB brought the insurer an annualized investment yield of nearly 13 percent in the first half of this year.

Yang said that China Life will gradually strengthen its non-insurance core businesses, including assets management, banking, securities, and trusts, and in the meantime will keep developing its insurance business.

China Life will choose banks that could help its insurance business and prove a profitable investment, said Yang.

Market rumors recently had it that China Life may be forced to transfer its property subsidiary due to the regulator's rules on insurers' real-estate investment.

View the full story in Insurance News.