FWD Group is a multinational

insurance company Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

based in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. Founded in 2013 as the insurance arm of

Pacific Century Group Pacific Century Group (PCG), chaired by Richard Li, is an Asia-based private investment group founded in 1993 with interests in technology, media and telecommunications, financial services, infrastructure, property and other investments. It oper ...

, FWD Group sells

life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

and

medical insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among ma ...

general insurance General insurance or non-life insurance policy, including automobile and homeowners policies, provide payments depending on the loss from a particular financial event. General insurance is typically defined as any insurance that is not determine ...

and

employee benefits Employee benefits and (especially in British English) benefits in kind (also called fringe benefits, perquisites, or perks) include various types of non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries. Inst ...

in Asia. The company had

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

$50.9 billion in assets under management in 2020 and in 2021 was managing US$63 billion in assets. On February 28, 2022, FWD filed for a HK IPO. FWD currently operates in Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia. https://www.ft.com/content/bcc55200-fe31-421d-8b27-fca0bc969a9a "Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li’s FWD to raise up to $3bn in US IPO" FT

History

2013-18

Richard Li Richard Li Tzar-kai is a Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist. The founder and chairman of the private investment group Pacific Century Group (PCG), Li started his career in the 1990s with the founding of STAR TV, a pan-Asian television ...

formed FWD Group in 2013 after purchasing

ING Group The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale bankin ...

’s insurance and

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

units in Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand for US$2.1 billion.

Swiss Re Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd,
Swiss Re. Retrieved on 18 January 2011. "Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd ("Swiss Re") ...

bought a 12.3% stake in FWD Group in 2013 for $425 million. Huynh Thanh Phong joined as CEO in 2013."FWD's Huynh Thanh Phong - 'You have to find the right way to connect'"
FT The company then expanded into the Philippines in 2014 and Indonesia in 2015. Expanding into three more countries in 2016, that year FWD Group acquired Shenton Insurance in Singapore, also purchasing a unit from Great Eastern Holdings Ltd. in Vietnam for $35 million. In late 2016, FWD agreed to buy

AIG American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...

's Fuji Life Insurance Co. in Japan. By April 2017, FWD had $24.4 billion in assets under management and sponsored the

Clockenflap Clockenflap Music and Arts Festival, commonly abbreviated to "Clockenflap", is an annual music and arts festival held in Hong Kong. It incorporates international, regional and local live music, film, art installations, street, and kids' area. 60, ...

music festival. In 2018 FWD agreed to purchase an Indonesian life insurance venture, PT Commonwealth Life, from the

Commonwealth Bank of Australia The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), or CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of financial services including retail, busine ...

for $300 million. When the acquisition completed in 2020, PT Commonwealth Life was rebranded PT FWD Life Indonesia. FWD Group also purchased

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...

’s stake in a Malaysian insurance joint venture in 2018, acquiring 49% of HSBC Amanah Takaful (Malaysia), now renamed FWD Takaful (Malaysia).

2019-21

In June 2019, FWD Group purchased

MetLife MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, wi ...

's business in Hong Kong reportedly for around $400 million. That month, FWD Group agreed to buy SCB Life Assurance, the life insurance business of Thailand’s

Siam Commercial Bank Siam Commercial Bank ( th, ธนาคารไทยพาณิชย์; ) is a Thai bank that was founded on 30 January 1907. History SCB was founded as the "Book Club" on 4 October 1904 by Prince Jayanta Mongkol, a brother of King Ch ...

, for $3 billion, "reflecting the largest insurance deal in Southeast Asia in terms of value." FWD also launched its Malaysian takaful (Islamic insurance) market at the end of July 2019. By August 2019, FWD had applied for a license to enter a joint venture in China. Having spent $6 billion on

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

since its founding, in November 2019, FWD agreed to acquire Vietcombank-Cardif Life Insurance, a joint venture between

Vietcombank Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, commonly referred to as Vietcombank, is a commercial bank in Vietnam. Overview Vietcombank's headquarters are located in Hanoi, Vietnam. the bank had 116 branches and 474 transaction ...

and

BNP Paribas Cardif Cardif is an international insurance company based in France with a presence worldwide. The company is part of the BNP Paribas Group. History In 1973 the French bank ''Compagnie bancaire'' founded a life insurance company ''Compagnie d'Assura ...

, for $400 million. FWD announced in December 2019 it would exit its group medical insurance business in Singapore by December 2020. SCBD Jakarta

In March 2020, Prudential acquired a

bancassurance Bancassurance is a relationship between a bank and an insurance company that is aimed at offering insurance products or insurance benefits to the bank's customers. In this partnership, bank staff and tellers become the point of sale and point o ...

partnership in Thailand from FWD Group for $753 million. The following month, FWD Vietnam Life became the largest life insurer in Vietnam by

charter capital The authorised capital of a company sometimes referred to as the authorised share capital, registered capital or nominal capital, particularly in the United States) is the maximum amount of share capital that the company is authorised by its con ...

. In April 2020 FWD Group launched a

Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Charity Drive. In June 2020, FWD Group purchased a minority stake in the life insurance arm of PT

Bank Rakyat Indonesia PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk ( 'Indonesian People's Bank', commonly known as BRI) is one of the largest banks in Indonesia. It specialises in small scale and microfinance style borrowing from and lending to its approximately 30 mill ...

(BRI), PT Asuransi BRI Life, for a reported $300 million. By September 2020, press reported that FWD Group was considering an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

in Hong Kong. That month, FWD Insurance purchased a stake in IPP Financial Advisers. In 2020, FWD Group had $50.9 billion in assets under management and 7.5 million customers, with 6,200 employees in Asia. In 2021, FWD Group's Value of New Business reached US$686 million. FWD Group's segmental adjusted operating profit before tax was US$205 million in 2021, representing a 64% increase over the prior year period and more than quadrupled compared to 2019."Tycoon Richard Li Insurer FWD Files for $2 Billion U.S. IPO"
Bloomberg In 2021, FWD Group had 6,100 employees and $62.6 billion in assets under management, as well as 9.8 million customers. On February 28, 2022, FWD filed for a Hong Kong IPO and announced that it has raised more than US$1.6 billion in two private placement rounds since December 2021.

References

External links

FWD.com
{{Insurance industry in China Insurance companies of Hong Kong Companies of Hong Kong Financial services companies established in 2013

History

2013-18

2019-21

See also

References

External links