China's Greenland Group unit plans to buy European insurer, bank

SHANGHAI, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The finance arm of Greenland Group, China's largest property developer by sales, plans to buy an insurer or private bank in Europe in a push to diversify its financial services portfolio, its chairman said. Greenland Financial Holding Group, which currently engages in finance and fund management, also plans to buy a domestic life insurer by year-end having already researched a dozen, Geng Jing told Reuters in an interview earlier this week. Chinese financial institutions have been taking advantage of increasingly relaxed regulations by diversifying, with brokerages setting up asset management firms and e-commerce platforms establishing exclusively online banks. "We hope to create a firm that covers both the investment and investment bank elements of the finance industry," Geng said on Thursday. Short-term goals include setting up a brokerage while long-term plans involve owning a trust firm, he said. "We plan to take advantage of the lower euro to acquire a foreign financial asset," Geng said. "Our targets include insurance companies and private banks." By 2020, state-backed parent Greenland Group expects financial services to contribute a third of profit, Geng said. Greenland Group, which also controls Hong-Kong listed Greenland Hong Kong Holdings Ltd, is seeking to list in Shanghai via an asset swap with affiliate Shanghai Jinfeng Investment Co Ltd, as it steps up investment in Asia and Europe. The group aims to double overseas sales to 40 billion yuan ($6.40 billion) this year from last. Geng also said Greenland Financial plans to co-operate with Ant Financial Services Group - the finance arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd - to introduce low-risk financial products. The underlying assets of those products would be cash flow from commercial real estate and loans to small developers, he said. ($1 = 6.2495 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by David Lin; Writing by Engen Tham; Editing by Kazunori Takada and Christopher Cushing)