【10.03.11 纽约时报】A.I.G.'s Sale of Its Taiwan Unit in Regulatory Limbo

青蛙小王子

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/business/global/12AIG.html

HONG KONG - American International Group has managed to reach agreements for jumbo asset sales this month, but a smaller disposal - that of its life insurance unit in Taiwan, Nan Shan Life - remains in regulatory limbo.
A.I.G. agreed to sell Nan Shan to a consortium consisting of Primus Financial, an independent Hong Kong investment company founded by a former senior Citigroup banker; and China Strategic Holdings, an investment firm, for $2.15 billion last October.
But the proposed sale has raised regulatory hackles in Taiwan amid concerns that funding for the deal might ultimately come from China, which still has a tense relationship with Taipei. Despite a thawing in those tensions, companies with large mainland Chinese shareholdings face restrictions on investing in companies in Taiwan.
At a parliamentary hearing Thursday, Hwang Jung-Chiou, vice minister at the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs, said there was no indication that funds from China were being used, Bloomberg News reported.
But Taiwan will conduct more checks on the origin of the funds, he said, adding that he hoped the approval process could be completed in the first half of the year.
The prospective buyers did not comment Thursday and a spokesperson at A.I.G. in Taiwan could not be reached for comment.
But a person with direct knowledge of the transaction, who declined to be identified because of its sensitive nature, downplayed the regulatory scrutiny, saying that the length of time taken to get approval was not unusual.
The consortium has said that the transaction is not being financed by funds from China.
Nan Shan is one of the largest life insurers in the relatively mature Taiwan market, with total assets of about $46 billion and about four million policyholders.
Robert Morse, chairman and co-chief executive of Primus, described Nan Shan as ‘‘the crown jewel of the insurance industry in Taiwan'' when the prospective deal with A.I.G. was announced last October.
At that time, the Nan Shan sale was the largest in a series of disposals made by A.I.G. as it sought to raise cash to pay back its U.S. taxpayer-financed rescue.
Two much larger disposals announced this month will fetch A.I.G. a combined $51 billion. American Life Insurance Co., or Alico, is being sold to MetLife of the United States for about $15.5 billion while American International Assurance, an Asia-focused life insurer, is to be purchased by Prudential, a British insurer, in a deal valued at $35.5 billion.
The sales will allow A.I.G. to make significant repayments toward about $180 billion that the U.S. government has invested in the insurance giant as part of a huge series of bailouts.

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