Thousands of agents and employees of Nan Shan Life, the Taiwan unit of US insurance giant AIG, rallied Thursday to push for a corporate take-over, which they believed could save their jobs.
The demonstration in downtown Taipei came as a proposed $2.16 billion sale of Nan Shan to Run Chen, a group headed by one of Taiwan’s top conglomerates Ruentex, remained in limbo awaiting regulatory approval. “As long as the deal is not finalised, we don’t know if we have a future as employees of the company,” said Wu Yi-chiang, a Nan Shan staff member who convened the gathering outside parliament.
Nan Shan Life has 32,000 sales agents and 4,000 salaried employees, according to company officials.
The government has said it will accept the deal only if the buyer of Nan Shan meets certain requirements, including professional management skills and long-term commitment.
AIG announced a deal to sell Nan Shan Life to a consortium led by Hong Kong-based Primus Financial for $2.15 billion in 2009, but the deal was rejected by Taiwan’s financial regulator last year.
The regulator said it feared the Hong Kong group lacked the experience needed to manage an insurer and argued it had failed to provide a long-term management commitment, claims rejected by the consortium.
Taipai, May 5, 2011 (AFP)
