IPO Overview
Here is a brief overview of the indicative offering details from FWD Insurance’s (FWD) preliminary prospectus:
- The IPO Price will be HK$38.00 (Board lot: 100 shares)
- There will be 91.34m shares on offer. 7.2% of shares. IPO size is HK$3.48 billion.
- HK offering will be 10% or 9.13m shares while international offering will be 90% or 82.21m shares (subject to reallocation)
- Overallotment: Up to 13.7m shares in the international offering
- The total number of Units in issue immediately after close of the offering will approximately be 1,271.0 m shares (excluding overallotment). This implies a market capitalisation of HK$48.3b.
- Richard Li will own 66.45% shares after the IPO
- Other Substantial shareholders include Swiss Re with 5.67%, HOPU with 9.99%, GIC with 5.37%
- Richard Li and other substantial shareholders are subject to 6-month lock-up period.
IPO application timeline
The indicative timeline for public offer has been released. Here are the key dates to note:
- IPO Application opens: Thurs 26 June 2025, 9am
- IPO Application will close: Wed 2 July 2025, 12pm.
- FWD Insurance will commence trading: 7 July 2025, 9am
About FWD Insurance
Founded in 2013 by Richard Li, son of Li Ka Shing, FWD is an Insurance company that is currently in ten markets, namely Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, and 7 ASEAN countries, Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.
The IPO is FWD’s third attempt to go public after it initially aimed for a New York IPO in 2021 to raise up to US$3 billion (S$3.8 billion).
FWD is ranked as a top five insurer and the top bancassurer within its Southeast Asia markets by annualised premium. FWD’s Hong Kong (and Macau), Thailand (and Cambodia), Japan and Emerging Markets operations contributed 34.2%, 32.6%, 15.7% and 17.5%, respectively, of new business contractual service margin.
FWD has a strong network of bancassurance partnerships and ecosystem partnerships, and even exclusive bank partnerships.
The breakdown of the overall Group premium by distribution channel for bancassurance, agency, brokerage/Independent Financial Advisers(IFA) and others, was 39.2%, 21.6%, 30.7% and 8.5%, respectively, in 2024.
Developed countries had a higher proportion of activity through Brokerages/IFA and Agencies, with over 55,000 agents and 2,000 MDRT agents, whereas developing countries relied more heavily on Bancassurance channels.
FWD also prides itself on its five key guiding principles – Easy to Know, Buy, Claim, Engage, Love.
Growth opportunities
1) Growth in Insurance premium
Aggregate life insurance gross written premiums in FWD’s current markets is forecast to grow from an estimated US$407 billion in 2023 to US$579 billion in 2033, representing a CAGR of 3.6%, hence offering opportunities for growth.
This growth is led by structural demographic and macroeconomic factors. Key drivers include middle-class expansion, ongoing wealth accumulation, a significant protection gap, which is the estimated additional life insurance premiums needed annually to fully meet mortality and health protection needs, as well as digital acceleration.
2) Growth in insurance investments
FWD’s research estimates that the cash on hand by households in the region is currently averaging above 50% and this provides for an overall opportunity to further optimise asset allocations away from cash.
3) Tough for new entrants to gain a foothold
Competition is tough and many Insurers who have a foothold in their home countries have turned towards ASEAN countries as they look outwards for growth opportunities. There have been a number of new entrants over the past 8 years within the FWD markets (including Bowtie Life, St James’ Place International and Well Link Life in Hong Kong, China Taiping and Singlife (pre-Aviva merger) in Singapore, 1CISP and Singlife in Philippines, China Life and Ciputra Life and Victoria Alife in Indonesia)
However none have reached more than 2% market share and most are at <0.5%.▪ This is because significant capital investment is required and new entrants typically require a significant amount of time to build up competitive distribution channels and capabilities; history suggests growing into the top 10 market share organically is both challenging and time consuming.
Usage of proceeds
FWD intend to use its proceeds from the IPO to enhance its capital position and to provide growth capital to grow its customer base and invest in digital strategies.
Unlike other IPOs where a company has specific plans on how they want to allocate the IPO proceed, FWD is setting itself up to have a strong balance sheet, intending to have excess liquidity in metrics such as the regulatory capital base, capital adequacy ratio and solvency position.
Having a strong balance sheet would allow FWD to seize opportunities and compete to support its growth as and when opportunities arise to further penetrate customer and channel reach across its markets.
Lock-up Undertakings
Each of the substantial shareholders have agreed to be subject to a lock-up period of six months from the Listing Date.
Valuation and Peer comparison
| Metric | FWD Insurance | Prudential | AIA | Ping An Insurance | Great Eastern |
| P/E (times) | 14 | 14 | 15 | 7 | 14 |
| Share price (HK$) | 38 | 100 | 71 | 50 | S$30.15 |
| Embedded value per share (HK$) | 37.2 | 129.8 | 50 | 85.5 | S$38.1 |
| Price to Embedded value (times) | 1.02 | 0.77 | 1.42 | 0.58 | 0.79 |
| Market Cap(HK$) | 48.2b | 253.8b | 761b | 1,040b | S$ 14.3b |
| New business Premiums (HK$) | 12.5b | 31.2b | 67.1b | 167.9b | S$1.3b |
Here we compare FWD to the bigger players Prudential and AIA and while also not comparable, with Ping An as it is also traded on the HKSE as well as Great Eastern.
We observed that FWD is fairly priced when comparing the two key metrics – Price to Embedded Value and Price to Earnings
Concluding statements
FWD’s foothold in mature countries such as Hong Kong and Japan would provide stability to the business while future growth would be from its emerging markets which are mostly ASEAN countries.
FWD’s IPO price reflects of HK$38.00 is significant discount to the valuation at the last funding round, as well as the previous IPO valuation target of nearly HK$78 billion, aligning with the share price decline of some comparable companies. The company is strategically positioned in the Asian insurance market, with a focus on Southeast Asia and underserved markets.
For long-term investors bullish on the secular growth of Asia’s insurance sector, FWD offers a compelling bet at a reasonable valuation, with multiple growth opportunities with structural tailwinds supporting its case.
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