BEIJING--China Life Insurance Co. Chairman Yang Chao said the company will study whether to subscribe to pan-Asia life insurer AIA Group Ltd.'s pending initial public offering but wants to see the pricing before making a decision.
China Life canceled a plan in March last year to buy a strategic stake in AIA, Mr. Yang said at a news briefing Thursday. But he said he hasn't personally been in "direct touch" with senior management of AIA parent American International Group Inc. to discuss possible strategic investments in the wake of U.K. insurer Prudential PLC's June decision to walk away from a $35.5 billion deal to take over AIA.
He said China Life had talked with AIG in the second half of 2008 about possibly making an offer for AIA's assets but shelved the plan last year.
"According to my knowledge, AIG has been trying its best to push forward AIA's IPO," Mr. Yang said.
AIG is again seeking to list AIA in Asia after Prudential withdrew its takeover plan when it couldn't renegotiate for a lower price. New York-headquartered AIG, which is majority-owned by the U.S. government after it received a financial rescue package in 2008, must sell AIA to help repay taxpayers. It was considering an Asian IPO for AIA before the Prudential deal.
China Life, the country's biggest life insurer by premiums, said late Wednesday that first-half net profit rose 7.4% to 18.03 billion yuan ($2.65 billion) from 16.8 billion yuan a year earlier, as premium growth more than offset a decline in investment returns from the domestic stock market.
But it recorded a fair-value loss of 479 million yuan from its equity investments, compared with a 1.8 billion-yuan gain for the first six months of 2009, as the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index declined 27% in the first six months of 2010, one of the world's worst performers.
China Life shares tumbled 6.3% on the results Thursday.
