AIA poised to buy Commonwealth Bank life insurance assets: sources

CommInsure has been the subject of scrutiny over the promotion of its life insurance policies. Pic: AAP

Insurance giant AIA is believed to be poised to buy Commonwealth Bank’s life insurance assets, according to sources.

It comes as AIA and Zurich lobbed final bids to buy CommInsure and the New Zealand Sovereign business by last night’s deadline.

It is thought that CommInsure and the New Zealand Sovereign business are worth more than $4 billion.

As flagged by DataRoom, Asian insurer AIA was thought to be the most likely group to buy CommInsure.

Sources this morning said they believed AIA had won the contest, although sources close to CBA did not comment.

AIA is understood to be working with Deutsche and Zurich with Credit Suisse.

US-based MetLife is thought to have shown some early interest in the New Zealand assets and took advice from Morgan Stanley.

CBA has been working on the life insurance sale with adviser JPMorgan.

AIA, based in Hong Kong, is the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group and has a presence in 18 markets in the Asia Pacific.

Its total assets under management in 2015 were said to be $172bn.

The company is already considered a leading life insurer in Australia.

It comes as ANZ is also selling its wealth management operations for about $4 billion, with suggestions that the process may wrap up around November.

Some say that Commonwealth Bank may next work to divest its overall wealth management operations after the sale of its life insurance division, including Colonial First State Global Asset Management.