China Life said it had invested US$300 million in Visa’s initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange last week, Bloomberg reported. This was the first overseas investment for China’s largest insurer, which is planning more deals in the US and Europe to diversify its portfolio. China Investment Corp also invested US$100 million in Visa’s IPO, according to anonymous sources cited in Caijing magazine. The firm said it is not looking for any strategic ties with Visa at the moment, and that the investment was mainly a financial decision. Visa had raised more than US$19 billion from its March 19 debut, making it the largest ever in the US and the second-largest globally, behind ICBC’s US$22 billion IPO in 2006. Visa’s share price has risen 28% since trading began. The sovereign wealth fund did not comment. Ping An Insurance, China’s second-largest insurer, announced on March 19 that it had bought half of Fortis’s asset-management business for US$3.4 billion.
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