Corporate History

2006

9 January, 2006 was a significant day in Ping An's history of development. The market capitalization of Ping An exceed HK$100 billion for the first time. As early as in July 1995, Dr Peter Ma, Chairman of Ping An, recommended to 1,000 Ping An staff The Legend of Trillions, a book about the development of Taiwan's Cathay Life Insurance. He then wrote a review titled Make A Legend of Ping An Together after he finished reading the book so as to encourage all staff to create "a bigger miracle than the one Cathay Life Insurance has done". Ten years passed quickly, yet the Ping An people do have made the legend a reality. Encouraged by policy directives announced via "Opinions on Reforms of the Insurance Industry in China" by the State Council, Ping An's core businesses and investment income enjoyed sustaining growth. These achievements were warmly welcomed by the capital market. On 15 December, 2006, Ping An saw its market capitalization surpass the HK$200billion mark.

On July 28, 2006, Ping An announced that it would acquire a 89.24% interest in Shenzhen Commercial Bank for RMB4.9 billion. Upon approval by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Shenzhen Commercial Bank officially joined the Ping An Family by the end of the year. Established in 1995, Shenzhen Commercial Bank is the first bank in the PRC that focuses on a single city. It spent several years exploring a proper business model and put in place modern management and organization systems as in other modern commercial banks. The bank's development progressed rapidly with it branch network extending the reach to every corners of the city. The addition of Shenzhen Commercial Bank significantly enhanced Ping An's capability in commercial banking and moved the Group a step closer to its goal of becoming an integrated financial service provider ready to provide a multitude of products to a single client.

On May 26, 2006, as a magnificent gift to Ping An's 18th anniversary, Ping An School of Financial Services officially opened. A tree-planting ceremony commemorating the opening was hosted and attended by Wu Dingfu, Chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, and Xu Zongheng, Mayor of Shenzhen. Ping An has invested RMB450 million in this school in an effort to realize its core mission of "Converting Knowledge into Value". The school will play an important role in helping the Group plan and integrate its training resources better. For many years, Ping An has dedicated to creating a good training environment to help all its staff upgrade their capability and value through a well-planned training curriculum and with world-class training facilities. The Ping An School of Financial Services will enhance the competitiveness of Ping An's team, contributing to the ultimate establishment of a knowledge-based business platform with major strengths in information sharing and value maximization.

A new back-office centre supporting all of the Group's operations commenced operation on June 3, 2006 in Zhangjiang District in Shanghai. This Zhangjiang centre was established in accordance with global best practices for financial services back-office operations. After 5 years of ardent planning and construction efforts, the centre has evolved into an integral part of Ping An's a customer-driven, one-stop standardized platform. As part of Ping An's core strategy to groom itself into a leading player in the industry, the Zhangjang centre adopts a unified protocol for all service deliveries, customer information sharing and back-office support. This unified protocol contributes positively to cost control and risk management, two indispensable element that strengthen Ping An's core competences.

On September 20, 2006, Ping An was again ranked the NO.1 among all mainland-Chinese companies and insurance companies in Asia in "Asia's Best Managed Companies 2006", an annual enterprise ranking exercise by London-based Euromoney Magazine, for its outstanding performance in company governance, quality management and marketing strength. Ping An was also ranked the No.1. In recent years, Ping An has made solid progresses in institutional reforms and management platform building. All Ping An staff members have instituted good planning, strict adherence to company policies and principles into their code of best practices. This enhancement in Ping An's corporate culture can help boost the momentum and appetite for innovative ideas for its team, an instrumental step towards better capability in implementing the company strategies.

On June 28, 2006, Ping An announced the establishment of China Ping An Asset Management (Hong Kong) Company Limited. Together with Ping An Asset Management Company Limited located in Shanghai, the Group has created an integrated system for its asset management businesses, contributing to the ultimate establishment of a world-class investment management platform capable of making global asset allocations under one roof. Since the release of the policy document Several Opinions on Reform and Development of the Insurance Sector by the State Council in 2006, asset management units created and run by insurance companies are allowed to expand their business scope and insurance companies are allowed more flexibility in investing their funds. Ping An fully utilized opportunities prescribed in this policy document as it designed asset management as one of the three basic pillars of its business mix, in addition to insurance and commercial banking. Also during the same year, Ping An's trust business enjoyed rapid development with assets entrusted breached the RMB10 billion mark. Meanwhile, Ping An Securities became one of the 18 securities brokerages approved by the Securities Association of China to conduct a new series of "innovative businesses", including sponsoring and underwriting of initial public offerings (IPO) of new shares. Since then, Ping An Securities successfully obtained approvals from the China Securities Regulatory Commission for IPOs transactions it sponsored for 10 companies, representing a success rate of 100% and was ranked the first in the industry. Seven of these finally completed their IPOs, the highest in the industry in terms of deal volume. Ping An Securities' deal volume for sponsoring non-tradable share reform projects was also ranked the fourth in the industry. It was named "The Best Sponsoring Agent for Small and Medium Cap Companies of 2006" by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

In 2006, China Insurance Regulatory Commission conducted a poll on customer satisfaction about their life insurers. Ping An Life received the highest cores for measures on customer satisfaction and loyalty and above-average scores for measures on after-sale services, popularity of products and claim effectiveness. Ever since Ping An established a target to put in place a "3A" service system in 2000, it has been enhancing its customer service back-end system in an effort to provide better service. It also upgraded its service for customers in the VIP bracket across the board and implemented other including customer service outlets, call centers and streamlining claim procedures, so as to meet the diversified needs of the customers. Ping An's products won five awards in "The First Innovative Insurance Product Awards China" in the life, wealth management and pension categories.

Ping An announced on September 14, 2006 creation of a RMB10 million China Ping An Charity, the largest of its kind by insurance companies in China, to subsidize talented university students who cannot afford tuition fees. This is one of the largest charitable projects that Ping An has ever invested since the company was established. In the recent years, Ping An has been allocating resources to build better corporate citizenship. It released for the first time an annual report on corporate citizenship during its 18th anniversary. It also invested RMB 1 million to create a nationwide network of Ping An Hope Primary Schools and another RMB 1 million to put in place library facilities in these schools. Meanwhile, Ping An initiated the establishment of "The Corporate Citizenship Alliance of China". Because of its outstanding performance in charity, Ping An was named for the Most Responsible Enterprise 2006, and the Most Respected Enterprise for the fifth year in a roll, and the Best Corporate Citizen in China for the third consecutive year.

In 2006, with an approval the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, Ping An Property & Casualty Company of China raised RMB 1.4 billion of capital, boosting its registered capital to RMB3 billion. The move made it one of the top three property and casualty insurer in China. This unit achieved very good results during the year and had been able to achieve all targets for the year 40 days ahead of the scheduled deadline, thanks to its team effort in strengthening development of its three key products and better coordination of sales efforts through channels. On 4 June 2006, Ping An Property & Casualty secured an insurance policy for the "South-North Water Transfer Project", the world's largest irrigation work with the amount insured reaching RMB12.3 billion.

On December 15, 2006, the reorganization of Ping An Annuity Insurance Company of China Limited was approved by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. Following a customer-driven strategy, Ping An Annuity will establish 35 branches and 127 sub-branches in an effort to create a platform for distribution of group products. Ping An Annuity aspires to play an important role in development of China's Enterprise Annuity system. After the reorganization, Ping An Annuity will have in place a more extensive sales network, a more integrated network of distribution intermediaries, a better product mix, better technical back-up support and a stronger team of talents to provide customers more professional protection against risks and annuity management services.