PING AN BOOSTS PHARMACEUTICAL FIRM SHAREHOLDING

Ping An Insurance (Group) Company’s life arm is to buy 50 million shares in Chinese pharmaceutical firm Yunnan Baiyao Group in a private placement. Ping An Life will pay Yuan1.39bn in total for the shares, which have a face value of Yuan27.9 each. The insurer had already bought 306,000 Yunnan Baiyao shares via the secondary market. Its move strengthens the relationship between the pharmaceutical firm and the insurance group. The parent company already owns one million shares and its sister firm Ping An Pension Insurance Company of China holds 15,000 Yunnan Baiyao shares. Once the latest transaction is completed the Ping An family will hold a stake of around 9.61% of the pharmaceutical firm’s stock.