Prudential, in the end, was hoist by its own petard. The more it talked up AIA, the more attractive the asset seemed to everybody else. AIG's decision to turn down the Pru's proposal to pay 14 per cent less for its main Asian unit, “after careful consideration”, must mean the group has assurances from sovereign wealth funds such as Singapore's Temasek and China Investment Corporation, and perhaps strategic investors such as China Life and Ping An, that there is strong appetite for a reversion to plan A: an initial public offering in Hong Kong. In iffy markets, it is usually the mid-sized offerings that suffer, not the mega-deals such as AIA.
保誠集團(Prudential)最後搬起石頭砸了自己的腳。它越是吹捧友邦保險(AIA)，這項資產對其他人的吸引力就越大。美國國際集團(AIG)「經過慎重考慮後」，決定拒絕保誠將收購價降低14%的提議。這肯定意味著，AIG得到了新加坡的淡馬錫(Temasek)和中國投資公司(China Investment Corporation)等主權財富基金、或許還有中國人壽(China Life)和平安保險(Ping An)等戰略投資者的保證，它們對重拾原計劃有著強烈的興趣：AIA在港上市。在不可靠的市場，受影響的通常是中等規模的上市，而不是像AIA這樣的特大交易。