Transglobe Life Insurance Co (全球人壽) aims to double its first-year premiums in five years, but will bypass acquisition opportunities at home and abroad after purchasing the insolvent Kuo Hua Life Insurance Co (國華人壽) one-and-a-half years ago, senior executives said yesterday.
“We aim to increase first-year premiums by 10 percent each year so they may double in five years, led by a continued focus on pension insurance policies,” Transglobe president and chief executive officer Nicolas Chang (張永固) told a media briefing to mark the company’s 20th anniversary.
Pension insurance policies accounted for 60 percent of first-year premiums at NT$11.88 billion (US$391 million) in the first nine months of this year, company data showed, a 35 percent increase from the same period last year.
Photo: Liao Chien-ying, Taipei Times
Net income stood at NT$470 million last quarter, with growth momentum to remain stable this quarter, Chang said.
The insurer saw its assets rapidly enlarge to NT$70 billion following the acquisition of Kuo Hua early last year, improving its capital adequacy ratio to 300 percent, company statistics showed.
Unlike peers with aggressive expansion plans, Transglobe will pursue organic growth in the foreseeable future, the company said.
The company will not entertain the idea of developing into a regional champion or join the upcoming bid for debt-ridden Global Life Insurance Co (國寶人壽) and Singfor Life Insurance Co (幸福人壽), Chang said.
“We will yield the [acquisition] opportunity to peers this time around,” Chang said, adding that the integration of Kuo Hua remains a challenge.
The semi-official Taiwan Insurance Guaranty Fund (TIGF, 保險安定基金) will have to pay more than NT$50 billion in compensation for buyers to take over Global Life and Singfor Life given the pair’s losses, which are widening since being put under government receivership in August.
In November 2012, Transglobe won the bidding for Kuo Hua with record compensation of NT$88.37 billion.
Transglobe invests 85 percent of its funds in corporate and government bonds to generate stable and recurring income, chief investment officer Ding Dau-ming (丁大明) said, adding that stock and property holdings constitute the remaining 15 percent.
“We aim to cap equity investment at 6 percent, as the TAIEX is likely to consolidate at between 8,300 and 9,000 toward the end of the year,” Ding said.
The insurer plans to direct 10 percent of investment funds to real-estate properties abroad, but has yet to find concrete targets, the firm’s real-estate investment division head Allen Chiang (蔣奕龍) said.
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