Australian banking major Westpac is reportedly set to finalise the sale of its life insurance business to Dai-ichi Life Holdings for about $1bn (A$1.3bn).
The Japanese giant is in talks with Westpac and the announcement could be made as early as this month, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.
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The talks are private, and the deal may or may not materialise, the report added.
Earlier this year, country’s second-largest bank appointed advisers to help offload the life insurance business as part of its strategy to sell non-core assets and focus on banking.
In September last year, Westpac was hit with a fine of A$1.3bn, the largest-ever penalty in Australian corporate history, for violating anti-money laundering laws and failing to stop child exploitation payments.
Last month, Westpac finalised a deal to sell its life insurance business in New Zealand for $280.84m to Fidelity Life.
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By GlobalDataIt followed the acquisition of Westpac’s general insurance business by German insurer Allianz for $534m.
Multiple insurance firms across the world have divested their life insurance units and some sold entire units too.
In June, China Post Life Insurance agreed to sell its 24.99% stake to AIA for $1.86bn.
A few days later, Prudential Financial closed the sale of its life insurance venture, Prudential of Taiwan, to Taishin Financial for approximately $187m.
Around that same time, Dutch insurer NN Group made an offer to acquire part of MetLife’s life insurance businesses in Europe.
In January 2021, Allstate agreed to sell Allstate Life Insurance Company (ALIC) to entities managed by private equity giant Blackstone for $2.8bn.
