China Taiping

China Taiping Insurance Holdings Company Limited (00966.HK) is a central financial enterprise headquartered in Hong Kong, whose business scope includes life insurance, property insurance, pension insurance, reinsurance, reinsurance brokerage and insurance agency, internet insurance and asset management. In 2012, China Life, PICC, China Taiping and China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) were elevated to four vice-ministerial-level centrally administered insurance enterprises, and China Taiping was the only one of them headquartered in Hong Kong.

From 2012 to 2018, Wang Bin led China Taiping for six years. According to Caixin, in the first three years the company achieved leapfrog development dubbed “rebuilding in three years”: by 2014, its total premium income, total assets and net profit had all doubled compared with three years earlier, establishing Taiping Life’s place in the “100-billion club”; in the following three years it pursued a “premium strategy”, consolidating value on the basis of its existing scale. In September 2018, Wang Bin moved to become chairman of China Life, and Luo Xi, who came from China Resources Group, succeeded him as chairman of China Taiping; the “premium strategy” subsequently disappeared from the company’s annual reports.

According to reports, during Luo Xi’s tenure China Taiping’s performance was somewhat lacklustre compared with the Wang Bin era: the new business value of its core segment, Taiping Life, performed poorly and the company’s share price was “cut in half”, although its investment side had some notable achievements. In 2020, Luo Xi moved to become chairman of PICC Group, after which China Taiping’s work was presided over by vice chairman and general manager Wang Sidong. Wang Sidong joined China Taiping in January 2018 and served under two successive chairmen, both with very forceful styles.

In the first half of 2020, China Taiping was hit hard by the pandemic. Against the backdrop of insurers one after another seeking transformation, the choice of its next leader attracted outside attention.