SoftBank's Vision fund to invest $100 million in venture with China's ZhongAn

SoftBank's Vision fund to invest $100 million in venture with China's ZhongAn
FILE PHOTO: The logo of SoftBank Group Corp is displayed at the SoftBank World 2017 conference in Tokyo, Japan, July 20, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo Copyright Issei Kato(Reuters)
Copyright Issei Kato(Reuters)
By Reuters
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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Japan's SoftBank Group <9984.T> will invest just over $100 million in a joint venture with the international arm of China's ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance <6060.HK>, a ZhongAn executive said.

SoftBank's giant Vision Fund will own 51 percent of the venture that aims to sell the Chinese firm's technology to financial and healthcare firms in Asia-Pacific. ZhongAn will have a 49 percent stake in the venture, which will have an initial capital of $200 million.

The companies announced the partnership earlier this month, without sharing the size of the investment.

ZhongAn will nominate two people to the new company's board, while SoftBank will have one, ZhongAn's CFO Francis Tang said on Monday, after the company reported a loss of 655.8 million yuan ($95.40 million) for the first half of 2018.

SoftBank bought just under 5 percent of ZhongAn as part of the insurer's stock market debut in Hong Kong in September last year.

"After their investment into ZhongAn's IPO, ... (SoftBank)saw that our technology could be exported to some of their portfolio investments, so they wanted to set up this joint venture," Tang said.

($1 = 6.8740 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Alun John; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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