Dah Sing Financial Group’s sale of its insurance arm to Chinese conglomerate Fujian Thai Hot Investment for HK$10.6 billion $1.4 billion after a fiercely contested auction illustrates just how keen mainland firms are for overseas assets.
Dah Sing said in a statement it would sell its Hong Kong and Macau insurance sales and underwriting business to Thai Hot for HK$8 billion. Thai Hot is paying an additional HK$2.6 billion in cash to Dah Sing Banking for a 15-year exclusive bancassurance tie-up.
Thai Hot, a property-to-insurance group, is paying 2.9 times embedded value for the insurance operations, and just under seven times book....