FWD continues its strong growth with the acquisition of another major competitor and reinforces its position as a leading life insurer in Hong Kong.
FWD Group, the insurance business of investment group, Pacific Century Group, has reached an agreement to buy the Hong Kong insurance business of MetLife, the company announced in a statement on its website on Friday.
According to the «Financial Times» (behind paywall), FWD paid less than $400 million for MetLife Hong Kong, citing people familiar with the deal. The paper reported that FWD is also close to reaching a deal to take over Siam Commercial Bank's life insurance business.
«MetLife Hong Kong is highly complementary to our existing business and the acquisition is another step towards fulfilling our ambition to build a leading pan-Asian life insurance platform,» Huynh Thanh Phong, FWD Group CEO, said about the deal.
Rapid Growth
FWD was established in 2013 by Richard Li, the son of hong kong business magnate Li Ka-shing, with the acquisition of ING’s insurance and pensions businesses in Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand in 2013 for $2.1 billion. It has since experienced exponential growth in Asia, acquiring its competitors as it expanded across the region.
In October, FWD took over the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's Indonesian life insurance arm. In 2017, it bought American International Group's Japanese life unit, after earlier doing deals in Singapore and Vietnam.
FWD has 17,900 agents, 5 million customers and $30 billion in assets, the «Financial Times» reported.
