Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance is buying a 15% stake in Thai Life Insurance for about $750 million, the latest in a string of investments in Southeast Asia by Japanese financial institutions looking for growth outside their lacklustre home market.
The deal follows hot on the heels of Dai-ichi Life Insurance’s purchase of a 40% stake in Indonesia’s Panin Life for $335 million. Outside the insurance sector Japanese megabank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group announced its acquisition of a 75% stake of Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya for $5.7 billion.
These deals have swollen the value of Japanese companies’ deals in Southeast Asia to $8.2 billion so far this year,...