By Insurance Asia | April 14, 2020<\/p>\n
KB Financial has acquired 100% of Prudential Life Korea for W2.3 trillion (US$1.9 billion).<\/p>\n
The South-Korean financial giant beat out other potential buyers \u2014 including private equity firms MBK Partners and Hahn & Company \u2014 in a bidding war that saw KB Financial offer the highest price.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In March of this year, it was predicted that KB Financial would be the final buyer, as the strongest bidder in the acquisition war.<\/p>\n
In an official statement, US-based Prudential Financial said: \u201cThis transaction is consistent with Prudential Financial\u2019s strategic focus internationally on Japan and higher-growth emerging markets around the world.\u201d The company is expected to file an after-tax loss of US$300 million in net income; and sale proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.<\/p>\n
The acquisition of Prudential Life Korea by KB Financial will propel the Seoul-based group into the top ranks of domestic life players, and improve their life insurance business portfolio. The deal is also a signal to rival Shinhan Financial \u2014 who beat out KB Financial to acquire ING Life Insurance (rebranded to Orange Life) in early 2019. At the time, ING was Korea\u2019s fifth-largest life insurer.<\/p>\n
KB Financial is one of South Korea\u2019s top three banks by asset value and operates through six business segments. It has both life and non-life business arms. Chairman Yoon Jong-gyu reaffirmed their commitment to developing their life business, commenting in March: \u201cLife insurers carry a higher price-to-book ratio than banks in markets with zero interest rate, like Europe. Challenging times often provide new opportunities and insurance would make a good business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Prudential Life Korea, a subsidiary of US-based Prudential Financial, was established in 1989. The Korean insurer has a strong market profile in the country, holding W20.2 trillion (US$17.1 billion) in total assets in the period ended June 2019.<\/p>\n
The sale means US-based Prudential Financial will leave the South Korean market after 30 years; and will be a boon to Korea\u2019s market, in the face of Covid-19 worries.<\/p>\n
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Insurance Asia | April 14, 2020 KB Financial has acquired 100% of Prudential Life Korea for W2.3 trillion (US$1.9 billion). The South-Korean financial giant beat out other potential buyers \u2014 including private equity firms MBK Partners and Hahn & Company \u2014 in a bidding war that saw KB Financial offer the highest price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-korea","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}