BPI completes Ayala Life sale to Philamlife

Bank of the Philippine Islands, the country's third-largest lender in terms of assets, completed the sale of the majority stake in its insurance subsidiary to The Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. BPI told the Philippine Stock Exchange on Tuesday that 51 percent of Ayala Life Assurance Inc has been sold to Philamlife. "Ayala Life, which will serve as the bancassurance platform for both companies, will be renamed BPI-Philam Life Assurance Corp," the company said. Ayala Life is the seventh largest life insurance company in the country with over P1.8 billion of gross premiums in 2008. Philamlife is in the process of becoming part of the AIA Group, a leading pan-Asian life insurance organization with over $60 billion in assets and a large base of over 20 million customers. The 158-year old BPI serves more than three million customers through its network of over 800 branches and 1,500 ATMs nationwide. BPI Capital and ING were the financial advisors to BPI while Deutsche Bank acted as sole financial advisor to Philamlife and AIA for this transaction. Philamlife, which recently exited its preneed and health maintenance organization business, has more than a million individual and corporate policyholders for various financial needs. - GMANews.TV