South Korea's DB Insurance to buy 75% stake in Vietnam insurer BSH

Shareholders in Vietnam’s Saigon-Hanoi Insurance (BSH) are set to sell 75 million shares, equivalent to a 75% stake, to DB Insurance Co., Ltd., a major non-life insurer in South Korea.

A deal for the transaction was signed on Tuesday, according to a company release on Friday.

The deal is now subject to approval at the firm's annual general meeting of shareholders slated for June 20 and from relevant state agencies. The Vietnamese insurer disclosed the information after the State Securities Commission (SSC) of Vietnam okayed the foreign ownership limit at BSH at 100% in May.

Among the 21 stakeholders, the biggest is Saigon-Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS) with 9.98 million shares. Both SHS and BSH are connected to Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB). SHB co-founded Vinacomin-SHB Insurance JSC in 2008, which was then changed to BSH in 2013. Meanwhile, SHS was established in 2007 with SHB as a co-founder.

Prior to the deal with BSH, DB Insurance had already conducted similar deals with other insurers in Vietnam. In 2015, the South Korean insurer marked its presence in Vietnam with the purchase of a 37.3% stake in Post and Telecommunication JSC (PTI), an insurer founded by state-run telecom giant VNPT.

In February 2023, DB Insurance entered an agreement to acquire a 75% stake at Vietnam National Aviation Insurance Corporation (VNI), after VNI had received approval to raise its maximum foreign ownership level to 100%.

Insurance premiums in Vietnam grew 6.8% year-on-year to VND59.46 trillion ($2.53 billion) in the first quarter of this year, according to the General Statistics Office. Of this, the figure for life insurance increased slightly by 3.1% year-on-year to VND39.59 trillion ($1.69 billion), versus growth of 15% in Q1/2022. Premiums for non-life insurance went up 15.2% to VND19.87 trillion ($846.79 million).