Insurance News
- China Pacific expected to delay HK IPO
Date: 30-Nov-2006 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
CHINA Pacific Insurance (Group) Co. is expected to delay its planned US$1 billion initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong to the second half of next year, financial sources close to the situation said yesterday.
The country's third-largest life insurer has terminated its client relationship with auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which has been working for China Pacific on IPO-related jobs for about four years, the sources said.
China Pacific had also decided to stop hiring Kind & Wood as its legal consultant for the IPO, the sources said.
The insurer had been planning to list in Hong Kong in the first half of next year, after delaying the IPO several times previously, they said.
The reasons for delaying the IPO again are unclear, the sources said.
China Pacific appointed a new chairman, Gao Guofu, in July.
Gao told a recent internal meeting that after the Hong Kong IPO, China Pacific planned to renegotiate with Insurance Australia Group (IAG) a US$280 million deal in which IAG has agreed in principle to buy nearly 25 percent of the non-life insurance arm of China Pacific group, the sources said.
China Pacific and PwC declined to comment, while an IAG spokeswoman was not available for comment.
'It's a big surprise to PwC,'one insurance industry veteran in Shanghai said, asking not to be named.
'It's certain that the China Pacific IPO will be delayed as the company now cannot use PwC's IPO auditing report as part of its IPO documents, and you need to redo everything from the very beginning which is quite time-consuming,'he added.
Another source in Shanghai said China Pacific was unlikely to file its IPO application to Hong Kong's stock regulator before the Chinese New Year in February.
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