MEIJI YASUDA LIFE OPEN FOR BUSINESS AS MERGER IS CONFIRMED

Japanese assurers Meiji Life and Yasuda Mutual Life formally completed their planner merger on January 1, having already integrated many of their subsidiaries well in advance of the January deadline. The merger, which creates Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co, is the first full-scale link-up between two Japanese life assurers, and has created the country’s second-largest life company in terms of outstanding contracts, with combined assets of about ¥27tn and a 22-strong management board led by Meiji Life president Ryotaro Kaneko. Both Meiji and Yasuda are considered by analysts to be financially robust, with neither having been affected by the negative spread which has led to so many recent failures in the Japanese marketplace.