Allianz AG, Europe's largest insurer, and Uni-President Group (
The sale of Allianz President General Insurance Co (
Allianz said it's selling its Taiwan property and casualty insurance unit to focus on expanding life insurance and asset management here.
"The decision to sell Allianz President General Insurance enables Allianz to concentrate on developing our life insurance business in Taiwan, Allianz President Life Insurance (
"Overall, Allianz remains committed to growing its financial services interests in Taiwan, including its asset management business Allianz Dresdner Asset Management," Zedelius said.
Millea has been expanding its insurance business through its affiliates in the Asia region and invested 30 percent share into Newa Insurance Co (
Newa, ranked the 10th non-life insurance company in Taiwan, is very strong in automobile insurance with an extensive car dealer network, while Allianz President General Insurance is strong in commercial insurance business, with sales through an excellent network of in-house agents, Millea Asia CEO Takaaki Tamai said in the statement.
"The combination is very much complemental for Millea Asia, with not much overlap in business fields and distribution networks," Tamai said. "We are very pleased with this opportunity to further expand our presence in Taiwan non-life insurance market."
Uni-President said on Monday it plans to sell its non-core investments, including those in the financial industry, as it focuses more on its food and chain-store businesses.
"Our company strategy is to sell, at a good price and at the right time, our non-core investments like those in financial and some other sectors," Uni-President Spokesman Simon Hung (
Tamai and Allianz Group CEO Bruce Bowers yesterday morning visited the nation's financial authorities to inform them of their decision, said Chen Wei-lung (陳惟龍), deputy commissioner of the Financial Supervisory Commission's insurance bureau.
Allianz President General Insurance was established in 1996 with initial capital of NT$2 billion. With its strong growth over the past few years, the insurer has secured almost 3 percent of Taiwan's property insurance market, Chen said, citing the commission's statistics.
Fubon Insurance Co (
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
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Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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