China Development Financial acquires China Life

The merger will form Taiwan’s second-largest financial holding corporation.

Taiwan-headquartered China Development Financial Holding Corporation has acquired China Life Insurance as a wholly-owned CDF subsidiary through a share swap method.

After an extraordinary shareholders meeting, the two Taiwan-based companies have voted to merge, forming the second-biggest financial holding corporation in the country after Cathay Financial Holdings.

China Development Financial’s shareholders approved the share swap plan to issue common shares, preferred shares, and cash to acquire all outstanding shares of China Life from all shareholders. 

The share swap will acquire 44.05% of China Life shares externally, not counting the 8.66% shares already held by KGI Securities. The equal price of this share swap shall equal 0.80 CDF common shares, 0.73 CDF preferred shares, and NT$11.5 in cash for every China Life common share. The equal price is based on the price after ex-rights and ex-dividends, including the cash dividend of NT$0.4 already released and a stock dividend of NT$0.4 to be released by China Life, and the cash dividend of NT$0.55 already released by China Development Financial

According to China Development Financial, acquiring 100% of China Life shares will also allow it to further accelerate the ongoing implementation of its ABCDE Strategy: Accelerate Digital, Become Employer of Choice, Customer Focus, Drive Growth, and Execution Excellence and become a complete financial holdings company with all four major businesses; life insurance, banking, securities and venture capital/private equity, in its portfolio.