Ping An to Buy 20% Stake in Chinese Developer for $2 Billion
A unit of Ping An Insurance (Group) Co., China’s largest insurer by market value, plans to purchase a 19.7 percent stake in local developer China Fortune Land Development Co. The insurer’s asset management unit will spend 13.8 billion yuan ($2.1 billion), or 23.66 yuan a share, to buy 582 million shares of the builder from the company’s controlling shareholder, China Fortune Land said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Tuesday. The purchase of the stake comes after a renewed drive by Chinese regulators to contain risks in the property market, dragging down an index of Chinese property companies by 16 percent in the past month.