Anbang Insurance, the highly acquisitive Chinese group, has been adding to its stake in China Vanke amid a rare public battle over corporate ownership at the nation’s biggest homebuilder by sales.
The Chinese insurer, which bought the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York for $1.95bn last year and failed in a recent bid to buy Portuguese lender Novo Banco, increased its stake in China Vanke from 4.5 per cent to 7 per cent over the last three weeks, according to regulatory filings in Hong Kong.
Anbang’s move adds to the intrigue surrounding China Vanke, after the chairman of the company attacked stakebuilding by a lesser-known insurance and property group called Baoneng.