HSBC buys Axa’s Singapore insurance assets for US$575m

HSBC Holdings reached a deal with France-based insurance firm Axa’s to acquire its assets in Singapore for US$575m. This acquisition is part of HSBC’s moves to scale up its wealth-management operations in Asia. The lender also hopes to push up fee revenue. 

In an announcement released by the lender, it indicated that the combination of the insurance operations of Axa Singapore and HSBC Life Singapore will rank seventh on the list of largest life insurers and fourth on the list of largest retail health insurers in Singapore.

The combined unit will also have over 600,000 active policies covering life, health and property, and casualty insurance.

Before this move, HSBC ranked 10th on the list of life insurance firms in Singapore and did not run a health insurance operation in the territory.

“This transaction gives the scale and the capability to continue to invest and grow from here,” Bryce Johns, Global CEO of HSBC Life and Insurance Partnerships, said in a discussion with Reuters on Monday.

This acquisition is unarguably HSBC’s most expensive one since the US$726m merger through which the banks Oman operations became one with Oman International Bank in 2012.