It has not been a good year for mergers and acquisitions in the insurance sector in Asia. The strategic rationale for these deals is compelling: insurance firms are keen for further exposure to Asia to increase their growth rates and penetration potential, while shareholder exits are being driven by the need for Western players to shore up capital or downsize their businesses to satisfy concerns that they are spreading themselves too thin.
But shareholders and regulators are not on board in all cases. And this has resulted in a spate of failed deals that have consumed a lot of management time and effort but left the buyers and sellers (and their advisers) with little to show for their work.
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