FURTHER DETAILS EMERGE ON MAX NEW YORK LIFE DEAL

Mitsui Sumitomo, a unit of Japanese insurance holding company MS&AD, will pay New York Life about $531m for a 26% stake in Indian life assurance joint venture Max new York Life. The business will be renamed Max Life. Max India chairman Analjit Singh, whose Max Group owns 70% of the joint venture, said yesterday that Mitsui Sumitomo had made an unsolicited offer eight or nine months ago. New York Life's chief financial officer Michael Sproule said that "we are focused on, concentrating on, our leading market positions that we have in the US and Mexico and that is the driver of our repositioning from our international businesses". The joint venture had gross premiums of INR58.1bn ($1.13bn) last year. Mitsui Sumitomo will obtain two seats on the board of the joint venture.