Chinese insurer Ping An hits out at Wen Jiabao report

Chinese insurer Ping An threatened legal action on Monday after a report linked a key government decision about the company to shareholdings held by relatives of Premier Wen Jiabao.

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China's government granted Ping An a waiver from a requirement that large financial companies be broken up in 1999. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 3:26pm, 26 Nov 2012Updated: 9:48am, 5 May 2015

Chinese insurance company Ping An threatened legal action on Monday after a media report linked a key government decision about the company to shareholdings held by relatives of current Premier Wen Jiabao.

The New York Times said on Sunday that the chairman of Ping An Insurance wrote personally in 1999 to Wen, who was vice-premier at the time, and met his wife as the government mulled a decision to split up the company.

Following the lobbying, it said, the government granted Ping An a waiver from a requirement that large financial companies be broken up.

An investment vehicle later controlled by relatives of Wen bought shares in Ping An at a significant discount following the government decision, long before most other investors could buy into the stock, the report said.

The company went on to become a hugely influential insurer and shareholdings held by Wen’s family grew hugely in value, peaking at US$2.2 billion in 2007, the paper reported. The company is now China’s second largest life insurer.

Last month The New York Times reported that financial records showed Wen’s relatives had controlled assets worth at least US$2.7 billion, a report that China branded a smear.

Ping An said in a statement on Monday that “recent media coverage related to the company” contained “serious inaccuracies, facts being distorted and taken out of context, as well as flawed logic”.