Prudential Financial Inc. is close to a deal to buy two Japanese life insurance companies for $4 billion to $5 billion from American International Group Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported.
A sale of AIG Star Life Insurance Co. and AIG Edison Life Insurance Co. will help AIG repay the more than $90 billion it owes to taxpayers, the report said, without saying where it got the information. Mark Herr, an AIG spokesman in New York, and Bob DeFillippo, New York-based spokesman for Prudential, the second-biggest U.S. life insurer, declined to comment.
Prudential Chief Executive Officer John Strangfeld has said the Newark, New Jersey-based firm is a “buyer.” The company may add to businesses outside the U.S., according to its annual report. Prudential acquired bankrupt Yamato Life Insurance Co. last year, adding to operations in Japan, where the company has done business for more than two decades.
AIG Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche is selling assets to help repay a $182.3 billion government bailout. AIA Group Ltd., the bailed-out insurer’s main Asia unit, received preliminary approval for a Hong Kong initial public offering that may raise $10 million to $15 million, two people with knowledge of the matter said yesterday.
Prudential resumed talks with AIG over the purchase of the two Japanese insurance units after discussions stalled earlier in the year, two people briefed on the situation said last year.
AIG is scaling back as some rivals are seeking to expand. Prudential and Canada’s Sun Life Financial Inc. are adding clients and considering acquisitions with the capital accumulated since the financial crisis. MetLife Inc., the biggest U.S. life insurer, agreed in March to pay $15.5 billion for AIG’s American Life Insurance Co. unit.
To contact the reporters on this story: Hugh Son in New York at hson1@bloomberg.net; Tomoko Yamazaki in Tokyo at tyamazaki@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at apapuc1@bloomberg.net
Bloomberg are reporting that Prudential are seeking to acquire two of AIG’s Japanese life insurance companies, AIG Life Insurance Co and AIG Edison Life Insurance Co, for $4-$5 billion. AIG need to sell sectors of their business off to repay $90 billion that was used to bail them out by the US Government during the credit crunch.
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