Ping An Insurance


Ping An Insurance known also as Ping An of China, full name Ping An Insurance Company of China, Ltd. is a Chinese holding conglomerate whose subsidiaries mainly deal with insurance, banking, and financial services. The company was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Shenzhen. "Ping An" literally means "safe and well".
Ping An ranked 7th on the Forbes Global 2000 list and 29th on the Fortune Global 500 list.
The company is considered to be China's biggest insurer, with US$107 billion in gross premium income in 2018. Its market capitalization is at US$220 billion in July 2019, making it the world's largest insurer except for Berkshire Hathaway.
Ping An Insurance is one of the top 50 companies in the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It is also a constituent stock of Hang Seng Index, an index of the top 50 companies in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Ping An Insurance was also included in the pan-China stock indices CSI 300 Index, FTSE China A50 Index and Hang Seng China 50 Index.
Ping An Insurance has been selected for the 2019 Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index. It was the first insurance company from mainland China to be selected on the index. Ping An is a signatory of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, and was the first asset owner in mainland China to join.
Ping An Insurance consistently ranks as the world's top global insurance brand, and as of 2018, was the third most valuable global financial brand in the world.

Business

Ping An Insurance Group started off in 1988 as a property and casualty insurance company, later diversifying into life insurance, banking, asset management, brokerage services and private equity investing. But it is Ping An's embrace of technology, with an array of financial technology platforms and services for customers, that has made it a diversified financial conglomerate.
Ping An is one of the few companies in China with licenses to offer a full suite of financial services, including insurance, banking, trusts, securities, futures and financial leasing.
Since the mid-1990s Ping An has been diversifying into financial services from its core business of insurance and began taking investments from overseas firms. Ping An accepted investments from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in 1994. In 2002 HSBC took a large equity interest in Ping An. In early 2008, Ping An agreed to take a 50% share in Fortis Investments, a subsidiary of Fortis, which had taken over ABN AMRO Asset Management as a result of the split up of ABN AMRO in late 2007, but the deal was cancelled in October 2008.
In June 2009, Ping An became a strategic investor in Shenzhen Development Bank,. In 2016, Ping An invested more overseas. In January in 2017, Deputy Head Cai Lifeng resigned for personal reasons.

Technology-Powered Business Transformation

Ping An invests 1% of its revenues into R&D, which is 10% of its profit every year, on new technologies of AI, Blockchain and Cloud Computing for ten years to transform its financial services and support the building of its five ecosystems: financial services, health care, auto services, real estate services and smart city services. More than 576 million users and 100 Chinese cities are connected to at least one of those ecosystems. Over the years, Ping An has successfully launched fintech and healthtech businesses such as Lufax Holding, OneConnect, Ping An Good Doctor, and Ping An HealthKonnect.
Supporting Business Development with Three Core Technologies
Ping An is a publicly listed company. It is China's first joint-stock insurance company. Beginning in the 1990s, Ping An took advantage of widening reforms to become the first Chinese financial institution in which foreign firms could own equity: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were early backers. The company eventually went public in 2004, listing in Hong Kong and subsequently also listed in Shanghai in 2007.
As at 31 December 2019, Charoen Pokphand Group is the biggest investor in Ping An, holding 8.97% stake. Shenzhen Government via Shenzhen Investment Holdings and Shum Yip Group, still owned a combined 6.68% stake as the second largest shareholder.
Ping An has the classification as being a civilian-run enterprise. Richard McGregor, author of , said that "the true ownership of large chunks of its shares remains unclear" and that the ownership of Ping An is a "murky structure". In October 2012, The New York Times reported that relatives and associates of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao controlled stakes in Ping An worth at least US$2.2 billion in 2007. They paid the equivalent of 40 cents a share, others buying at the same time paid as much as $1.20. Thanks to favourable regulatory treatment and licensing, the firm was able to build a diversified financial firm with interests in insurance, brokerage, and banking. Premier Wen Jiabao's family responded back to The New York Time's report, claiming its statement about their family's wealth is "untrue". Two lawyers later released a statement on behalf of Wen's family denying the other claims made, and asserting that the premier's 90-year-old mother has never held a US$120 million of Ping An Insurance's investment, as the paper had reported.
HSBC acquired 48.22% of H shares by means of different HSBC subsidiaries. HSBC hold 16.80% of total shares of Ping An, making itself to be the biggest shareholder at 31 December 2009.
On 5 December 2012, HSBC announced to sell their entire 15.57% stake for HK$72.736 billion to Thailand conglomerate Charoen Pokphand. The deal would split into two phases, which the latter was subjected to the clearance from China Insurance Regulatory Commission, which would be paid in cash and a loan from China Development Bank to Charoen Pokphand. In February 2013 Charoen Pokphand got the clearance. On 10 May in spite of a lack of loan from the state-owned China Development Bank to Charoen Pokphand, the deal was completed. According to HSBC, the transaction would increase Tier 1 Capital ratio of the bank for 0.5%, as well as a post-tax gain of US$2.6 billion. HSBC had an above average forecasted CET1 ratio of 8.5% in 2011 European Union bank stress test under the adverse scenario, nevertheless HSBC chose to strengthen its capital by selling Ping An. The actual ratio at 31 December 2012 was 12.3%, increased 2.2% year-to-yearly.

Markets

Since 24 June 2004 Ping An has been listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong as. Since 1 March 2007, it has a listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange as.
Ping An was chosen as an index stock of the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, replacing Anhui Expressway in 2004.
The Hang Seng Index Services Company announced on 11 May 2007 that Ping An would join as Hang Seng Index Constituent Stock effective on 4 June 2007.

Operations

Ping An has operations across all of the People's Republic of China, and in Hong Kong and Macau through Ping An Insurance Overseas. Lufax, OneConnect and Ping An Good Doctor have now expanded overseas. OneConnect is in 10 countries outside of China, serving about 27 top institutional financials.