(Observer News)
On January 18, data from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange showed that Ant Group reduced its shareholding in ZhongAn Insurance by 46,537,063 shares, down from 13.54% to 10.37%. In addition, the other two largest shareholders of ZhongAn Insurance, Tencent and Ping An of China, held the same shareholding ratio of 10.2054%.
In this regard, Ant Group responded that the reduction is a normal investment decision, although the holding of ZhongAn's shares has decreased, but the strategic cooperative relationship between the two sides remains unchanged, and Ant is as always optimistic about the long-term development of ZhongAn.
According to public information, in the past three years, ZhongAn Insurance and Ant Group have signed an Internet platform cooperation framework agreement involving major related party transactions, during which Ant Group and its subsidiaries provide platform services for health insurance, air travel insurance, e-commerce and other forms of insurance, and ZhongAn pays platform service fees to Ant Group or its subsidiaries. The upper limits of related party transactions under the three-year agreements for 2020, 2021 and 2022 are 2.01 billion yuan, 3.048 billion yuan and 1.517 billion yuan respectively.
In terms of investment in property insurance companies, Ant Group has achieved "one participation and one control" for ZhongAn Insurance and Cathay Property & Casualty Insurance. In 2013, Ant Financial, as the main promoter, jointly initiated the establishment of ZhongAn Online Property Insurance Co., Ltd. with Tencent, Ping An and other institutions, and as of the time of this reduction, it held 13.53% of the equity of ZhongAn Insurance, making it the single largest shareholder. In addition, in July 2016, Cathay Pacific Property & Casualty introduced the strategic investment of Ant Group, which was approved to increase its capital by 833 million yuan, and Ant Group became its controlling shareholder with a shareholding ratio of 51%.
Before the listing of ZhongAn Insurance, Ant Financial, Tencent and Ping An Insurance held 16.04%, 12.09% and 12.09% respectively, and the shareholding ratios of these three major shareholders decreased by 5.67%, 1.89% and 1.89% respectively.
In the past year, the stock price of ZhongAn Insurance has shown a significant downward trend. In January 2021, ZhongAn Insurance's share price reached a high of HK$66 per share, and then fell all the way, and as of the close of trading on January 19, 2022, the stock price was only HK$27.8 per share, a decline of more than 50% in one year.
Recently, the leading enterprises in the Internet industry have taken the initiative to shrink their investment territory, releasing a signal that they are more focused on the main business. In April, Ant Group reduced its stake in Indian takeaway company Zomato, and in October, it was reported that Ant Group sold all of its shares in Caixin.
In addition, Tencent has also frequently reduced its holdings in the invested companies: at the end of December 2021, Tencent's shareholding in JD.com dropped from 17% to 2.3%; only about 10 days later, Tencent once again reduced its stake in Sea, the largest Internet company in Southeast Asia, from 21.3% to 18.7%.
Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry of Broadcom Consulting, said that at present, Ant is gradually returning its business to the platform and focusing on the main business, which is in line with the regulatory orientation. Ant has not completely withdrawn from ZhongAn Insurance and still maintains a basically the same equity ratio as Tencent, but the dependence between the two sides has decreased. At present, Ant has opened up the platform in the insurance field, and ZhongAn has also cooperated with the scene party in addition to the shareholder side.
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