Taiwan’s Fubon Life Insurance is investing US$203 million in three global private equity funds, including $100 million in US manager KKR & Co’s Asia Pacific infrastructure fund, raising the insurer’s total private equity investments thus far this year to $515 million.
Its two other new investments are $60 million in US technology-focused private equity manager Thoma Bravo’s buyout fund, and 40 million euros ($43 million) in a fund from Luxembourg venture capital firm CVC Capital Partners, Fubon Life says in a statement on May 15.
The latest investments come on top of the $312 million Fubon Life poured into five global private equity funds over the first four months of 2020.
It underscores the insurer’s move to further increase exposure to alternative or non-mainstream assets, according to Donna Chen, founder and president of Taipei-based investment consultancy Keystone Intelligence Inc.
“Fubon and Cathay [Life Insurance] are among the Taiwanese life insurers that are actively investing in private equities since the Taiwanese financial regulator allowed insurance companies to include such assets in their portfolios in 2008,” Ms. Chen tells Asia Asset Management.
Although the insurers’ average exposure to alternatives remains lower than in plain vanilla investments, she expects them to put greater focus on private equity as they look for better yields amid the ongoing market volatility.
Fubon Life has around NT$4.72 trillion ($157.6 billion) of total assets currently.