One of the purchasers of AIG’s Taiwan Nan Shan Life unit still hoped for a favourable solution to the $2.2 billion sale even after their bid was rejected by Taiwan regulators. Robert Morse, chief executive of Hong Kong investment firm Primus Financial, also said the company would consider moving any parts of the transaction that were offshore to Taiwan to address concerns of Taiwan regulators.
“If something is good for the company, and good for the employees and good for the industry and good for the country, hopefully there’ll be a way it can be figured out how it will be allowed to proceed,” Morse said.
“If there was more comfort in an onshore Taiwanese structure, we would be delighted to do that.”
On Tuesday, Taiwan regulators turned down AIG’s sale of its Nan Shan unit to Primus and China Strategic after the deal was stalled for nearly 10 months.
Regulators said they were concerned about the buyer group’s ability to raise funds in the future and lack of experience to run an insurance firm. Morse, a former M&A head of Citigroup, said he believed the buyer group had sufficient experience in running insurance business.
