After four rounds of stock purchases, the shareholding has increased to 20%. The dividend calculation behind Ping An Life's additional capital of 15 billion

On January 7th, Ping An Life announced that as of December 30, 2025, its holdings of Agricultural Bank of China H-shares through Ping An Asset Management have surpassed the 20% threshold for shareholding, with a book balance reaching 32.428 billion yuan.

Looking back at this path, the proportion of H-share circulating capital has increased from less than 5% to the current 20%. Over the past year, Ping An has increased its holdings in four rounds, completing its acquisition of Agricultural Bank H-shares.

This is not an isolated case, but rather a typical footnote to the wave of insurance capital shareholding since 2025: last year, the number of shareholding instances by insurance capital rose to 39, setting a record for nearly a decade.

In this round of aggressive buying, over 80% of the targets pointed to H-shares, with high-dividend sectors such as banking, energy, and utilities becoming the absolute protagonists.

In addition to Agricultural Bank, Ping An's multiple investments in China Merchants Bank and Postal Savings Bank, as well as Hongkang Life's shareholding in Zhengzhou Bank, collectively construct the underlying logic of current insurance capital allocation: in a low-interest long cycle, viewing stable dividend-paying bank stocks as an alternative to "quasi-fixed income" assets.

The preference for dividend assets is driven by a dual force on the insurance companies' balance sheets.

On the liability side, the increase in the proportion of participating insurance forces insurance companies to seek more stable cash flows to match payout demands; on the asset side, the continuous decline in long-term bond yields has exacerbated the "asset shortage," while the 4%-5% dividend yield of bank stocks is undoubtedly a highly cost-effective safe haven.

A deeper consideration lies in the adaptation of accounting standards—by incorporating FVOCI (financial assets measured at fair value with changes recognized in other comprehensive income), insurance companies can effectively hedge against the impact of secondary market fluctuations on the profit and loss statement, achieving smoother performance.

Ping An's Co-CEO Guo Xiaotao has summarized the investment principles as the "three Cs": reliable operations, expected growth, and sustainable dividends;

Taking Agricultural Bank as an example, its net profit attributable to shareholders exceeding 220 billion yuan and steady growth in the first three quarters of 2025 precisely lock in these three dimensions, making it a ballast stone for long-term holdings by insurance capital.

The policy push cannot be overlooked either.

Starting in 2025, regulators will guide large state-owned insurance companies to allocate 30% of new premiums to A-shares, coupled with the introduction of long-cycle assessment mechanisms, which greatly weakens insurance companies' concerns about short-term pullbacks.

Currently, although the proportion of equity assets held by Ping An Life has risen to 27%, there is still room below the regulatory upper limit, indicating that there is still space for incremental releases.

Standing at the starting point of 2026, the frequency and scale of insurance capital shareholding are likely to continue to rise.

Before a fundamental shift in the interest rate environment occurs, high-dividend strategies remain the top choice for insurance capital;

However, beyond banking and utilities, as the assessment cycle lengthens, fields with long-term certainty, such as technology and advanced manufacturing, may gradually enter the sights of this batch of long-term capital