Sun Life Everbright Life has been approved to establish a new asset management company with one of its Chinese financial parents, China Everbright Group, with registered capital of 100 million yuan (US$15.7 million).

The new unit will be headquartered in Beijing and is required to complete the construction work within six months, said the China Insurance Regulatory Commission in a statement.

North China'sTianjin-based Sun Life Everbright Life introduced two new strategic Chinese parents — China North Industries Group Corp. and Anshan Iron and Steel Group Corp. — last August, in order to receive new capital and customers from the new shareholders.

Following the equity-structure change, Sun Life Everbright Life's original parent, China Everbright Group, and its Canadian parent, Sun Life Assurance, have respectively held 50% and 24.99% stakes while its new shareholders have respectively held 12.505% stakes. It has also become a Chinese domestic life insurer.

Sun Life Everbright Life earlier said it intended to become one of the top 10 medium-to-large insurance companies in China in the coming five to seven years, after winning regulatory approval to introduce two new strategic Chinese shareholders and raise capital of up to 3 billion yuan (Best's News Service, Aug. 17, 2011).

This strategy change does not mean foreign insurance players are trying to leave the China market, but is more because operational results at China joint ventures didn't meet some foreign insurers' expectations. This motivated them to restructure and reduce their share holdings in the joint entities by introducing more Chinese investors, said Wenli Yuan, Hong Kong-based senior analyst at Celent (Best's News Service, Oct. 19, 2011).

In the first seven months of 2011, the Sino-Canada joint insurer, Sun Life Everbright Life, has reported total cumulative premium of some 2.26 billion yuan, according to the CIRC.

Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada currently has a Best's Financial Strength Rating of A+ (Superior).