Anbang, the Chinese privately held insurance group which owns some €7 bn of real estate in the US and Europe, has been seized by the Chinese state after being accused of illegal business operations.
The move comes a few months after the indictment of Anbang's former chairman Wu Xiaohui for alleged fundraising fraud and embezzlement, and after a request to Anbang by the Chinese authorities to sell its overseas assets.
Anbang's most recent European deals have been in the Netherlands, where Anbang operates through its Dutch insurance company Vivat. The latest transactions were the €100 mln purchase in May last year of an office asset in the Dutch city of Utrecht from CBRE GI, and the €350 mln acquisition a year earlier of the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in Amsterdam from Blackstone.
Anbang closed its first Dutch real estate deal in 2015 with the acquisition of five office properties in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague from Blackstone for a price believed to be around €500 mln. But its initial entry into the European arena has flowed from its core business of insurance, a sector tightly regulated by the financial authorities.
Anbang acquired Belgian insurance company FIDEA and Delta Lloyd bank in 2014. The following year Anbang helped the Dutch government out of a property-inspired headache when it acquired insurer Vivat for a symbolic €1, €85 mln in back taxes and a €1.3 bn capital injection.
Vivat was the ‘Reaal’ in Dutch bank-insurer group SNS Reaal which had been nationalised two years before to prevent it collapsing under the weight of huge losses on the bank’s real estate lending portfolio. Vivat has stepped back into real estate as the conduit for Anbang’s office transaction with Blackstone and CBRE GI.
Anbang's best known real estate asset is the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. The Chinese insurer bought the iconic hotel from Blackstone for $1.95 bn in 2014.
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