However, in the more than five years since its establishment, Hetai Life Insurance has not only not been as smooth as the industry expects, but has experienced many twists and turns such as core executives being dismissed and shareholders falling into turmoil.

As the first Internet life insurance company in China, Hetai Life Insurance once attracted the envy of the industry because it was backed by two powerful shareholders of Tencent and CITIC Guoan. However, in the more than five years since its establishment, Hetai Life Insurance has not only not been as smooth as the industry expects, but has experienced many twists and turns such as core executives being dismissed and shareholders falling into turmoil.

As we all know, at the beginning of this year, due to debt defaults and other issues, CITIC Guoan Group entered bankruptcy reorganization. CITIC Guoan Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as CITIC Guoan ), one of the major shareholders of Hetai Life Insurance, is also on the list of mergers and reorganizations.

However, just as Guoan Group is promoting restructuring, the board members of Hetai Life Insurance have also quietly changed. Recently, the position of chairman of Hetai Life Insurance has changed. The former chairman Liu Xin stepped down and Hong Ning, who has a background in Goldman Sachs Group's , took over. At the same time, Hetai Life Insurance also disclosed that it plans to introduce two new directors. With personnel adjustments like

, what kind of changes is being brewed in Hetai Life Insurance? Especially in the current situation where the position of general manager is vacant and the lack of senior executives in the main insurance business, Hetai Life Insurance, which once used the Internet and technology as a starting point for development, will undoubtedly attract much attention where the new five years will go. The position of chairman of Hetai Life Insurance was quietly changed, but it actually happened on July 25. At that time, the company released an information disclosure report showing that after the resolution of the company's board of directors and approved by the Shandong Regulatory Bureau of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, Hong Ning has served as chairman of the company since July 21, 2022.

According to the information released by Hetai Life Insurance, Hong Ning joined in November 2021 and became a director. Eight months later, Hong Ning became the new chairman of Hetai Life Insurance. Perhaps, the change of the chairman has long been under the planning of Hetai Life Insurance.

It is reported that in the first quarter of 2022 solvency report, Hetai Life Insurance said:

"The company's board of directors received the resignation report of director Liu Xin and applied to resign from the position of director of the company. In view of Mr. Liu Xin's resignation, the number of directors who have the qualifications in the company is less than two-thirds of the number stipulated in the "Company Articles of Association", according to the "Company Articles of Association," 》Relevant provisions: Before the new director takes office, Mr. Liu Xin will continue to perform his duties in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations, normative documents and the "Company Articles of Association". "

"A Smart Insurance" Checked the solvency report of Hetai Life Insurance and found that in the fourth quarter of 2019, in the board of directors of Hetai Life, Wang Linpeng and Lai Zhiming, he resigned from his posts as directors, so that there were only three directors left among the board of directors of Hetai Life Insurance. If Liu Xin leaves, the number of directors of Hetai Life Insurance will not meet regulatory requirements. To this end, in order to ensure compliance with the number of directors, Liu Xin's resignation was "delayed".

But this is just a temporary "retention". After the new director is in place, Liu Xin will leave Hetai Life Insurance. "A Smart Insurance" found that on April 8, Hetai Life Insurance held its first extraordinary general meeting of shareholders in 2022, and reviewed and passed two proposals: "Proposal on Replacing Directors and Election of Liu Gangjian as Director of the Second Board of Directors" and "Proposal on Replacing Directors and Election of Liu Zhiqi as Director of the Second Board of Directors".

In other words, Liu Gangjian and Liu Zhiqi may join the board of directors of Hetai Life Insurance, and Liu Xin's resignation may be "fulfilled", but the qualifications of the two are still subject to regulatory approval. At the same time, after Liu Xin resigned, the chairman of Hetai Life Insurance also faced a vacancy, so Hong Ning's appearance just filled this position.

Hong Ning, born in 1961, is 61 years old this year. From January 2011 to December 2020, he served as global partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs Group. Among them, since 2011, Hong Ning has also served as the chairman of Goldman Sachs China Investment Banking Department and since 2014, he has also served as the chairman of Goldman Sachs Greater China Investment Banking Department. Judging from his past work experience, he is mainly focused on the investment field.

On August 10, Hetai Life Insurance issued an announcement on changing the administrative person in charge of investment business risks stating that the company's credit risk management capabilities, real estate investment business, and collective capital trust plan investment business risks have all become Hong Ning, and such changes are also expected.

There are always various reasons behind the personnel turmoil. Judging from the development background of Hetai Life Insurance, the turmoil in the CITIC Guoan Security system in the past two years may be a highlight that cannot be ignored.

In fact, Liu Xin, the former chairman of Hetai Life Insurance, came from the shareholder "CITIC Guoan". Public information shows that Liu Xin has served as a cadre of the Government Research Office and Government Office of Beijing Xuanwu District, the manager of the preliminary department and deputy general manager of Beijing Guoxin Real Estate Development Co., Ltd., deputy general manager and general manager of CITIC Real Estate (Beijing) Investment Co., Ltd., assistant general manager, deputy general manager and executive deputy general manager of CITIC Guoan Group Co., Ltd. Currently, Liu Xin serves as deputy secretary, director and general manager of the Party Committee of CITIC Guoan Group Co., Ltd.

It is worth noting that since the establishment of Hetai Life Insurance in 2017, Liu Xin has joined the company and served as chairman. He has been performing his duties for 5 years. From this point alone, it is not difficult to see the discourse status of CITIC Guoan in Hetai Life Insurance.

It is understood that although CITIC Guoan has a large asset scale and has once expanded rapidly, controlling stakes in many listed companies, it does not have a wide range of investment in the financial field. According to data, the financial licenses under CITIC Guoan Group are mainly fund sectors, namely CITIC Guoan Fund. As a national life insurance company, Hetai Life Insurance has become an important insurance base for CITIC Guoan.

However, shortly after Hetai Life was established, CITIC Guoan Group was exposed to a debt crisis. At the same time, its subsidiary CITIC Guoan Information Industry Co., Ltd. was also caught in a financial fraud scandal.

Data shows that as of the end of January 2019, the overall interest-bearing liabilities of CITIC Guoan Group reached 155.8 billion yuan, of which bank loans were about 82.4 billion yuan, followed by other loan balances and bond balances totaling about 45 billion yuan. In addition, CITIC Guoan Group also owes tens of billions of debts to different financial institutions such as insurance companies, trust companies, and securities companies. The outbreak of the debt crisis in

has forced CITIC Guoan Group to improve cash flow by pledging the equity of its listed companies. It is reported that just when the equity of various listed companies held by CITIC Guoan Group was waiting to be frozen, in the first quarter of 2019, CITIC Guoan Co., Ltd. also pledged 20% of the equity held by Hetai Life Insurance. By the third quarter of 2019, all of this equity was frozen.

In addition, in April this year, CITIC Guoan Industry Co., Ltd. issued an announcement stating that the manager of Guoan Group applied for the substantial merger and reorganization of the seven companies on the grounds that CITIC Guoan Co., Ltd., CITIC Guoan Investment Co., Ltd. and Guoan Group have a high degree of confusion in the legal personality of companies, the cost of distinguishing the property of the seven companies is too high, and the separate reorganization of Guoan Group will seriously damage the fair repayment of creditors' interests.

Until today, the equity of Hetai Life Insurance held by CITIC Guoan has been frozen for nearly 3 years. With the restructuring of CITIC Guoan Group, what will be done to this part of the equity leave a suspense.

In addition to the adjustment of chairman and director positions involved in board members, the management changes of Hetai Life Insurance have also attracted much attention.

Perhaps the industry still has an impression. The previous general manager of Hetai Life Insurance was Li Yuquan, a veteran "veteran" in the insurance industry. In December 2017, Li Yuquan, who was born in the Human Insurance system, joined Hetai Life Insurance, which was just established, which made the industry look forward to this new generation of insurance companies.

But unexpectedly, in October 2020, after nearly three years of office, Li Yuquan silently resigned and left, and the position of general manager of Hetai Life Insurance is still vacant.

After Li Yuquan left, Hetai Life Insurance issued an announcement stating that the company will temporarily have the power of the general manager, Liu Xin. But during this period, Hetai Life Insurance still did not find the general manager. It was not until December 2021 that Hetai Life Insurance announced that Hu Feng was the company's temporary head and saw another glimmer of hope.

data shows that Hu Feng, born in 1975, graduated from the Department of Political Science and Technology of Hunan Normal University, majoring in ideological and political education. He worked in the regulatory system in his early years and served as the former deputy director of the Office of the Tibet Insurance Regulatory Bureau and the former deputy director of the Transaction Supervision Department of the Fund Utilization Supervision Department of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. Later, Hu Feng joined Evergrande Group and successively served as general manager of Evergrande Group Investment Management Center and assistant to the president of Evergrande Financial Holding Group (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.

In September 2021, the Shandong Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau approved Hu Feng as the deputy general manager of Hetai Life Insurance. By December 2021, Hu Feng was appointed as the temporary director of Hetai Life Insurance, and his term of office ended until June 7, 2022. But from the current perspective, the term has ended, but Hetai Life Insurance has not yet welcomed a new general manager.

From the perspective of Hetai Life Insurance's business development, when Li Yuquan was the general manager, the company's business route was relatively clear, that is, to use the advantages of shareholders' platforms and customers to provide support for the development of Hetai Life Insurance.

For Hetai Life Insurance, its shareholders include the most popular Tencent in addition to CITIC Guoan, which is committed to building an "innovative life insurance company with obvious Internet advantages and outstanding value creation capabilities", it is undoubtedly the best help.

Moreover, Li Yuquan also said: "As an important shareholder of Hetai Life Insurance, Tencent will fully rely on its customer resource advantages to develop its business, use its big data and technology advantages to control underwriting risks, and use its technological advantages to carry out online claims services."

However, Hetai Life Insurance, which has a halo of Internet and technology, has gone relatively dull in its subsequent development path, far lower than market expectations.

data shows that from 2017 to 2021, and Tai Life Insurance business revenue was RMB 153 million, RMB 660 million, RMB 1.061 billion, RMB 1.797 billion, and RMB 1.122 billion, respectively; net profit was RMB -130 million, RMB -78 million, RMB -94 million, RMB -62 million, and RMB -129 million, respectively. In the first half of 2022, its insurance business revenue was 846 million yuan and its net profit was 16 million yuan.

From the perspective of business structure, dividend insurance has helped Hetai Life Insurance expand its business scale. For example, in 2018, Hetai Life's dividend insurance revenue was only 13 million yuan, accounting for a small proportion of the entire insurance business, about 1.9%. However, since 2019, its dividend insurance has developed rapidly. In 2019, the revenue of dividend insurance insurance business increased to 937 million yuan, accounting for 88.3% of the total insurance business income; in 2020, it became 1.645 billion yuan, accounting for 91.5%.

However, as the regulator adjusted the dividend distribution of dividend insurance and unified the dividend distribution ratio to 70%, Hetai Life Insurance experienced a decline in insurance business revenue in 2021. Although

was also affected by the epidemic during the period, this insurance company that insists on the dual-wheel drive of Internet channels and traditional channels did not surprise the market. In addition, after the implementation of the new Internet personal insurance regulations, how this insurance company that has not yet laid out branches in other provinces has also put forward a test for the new management.

2022 coincides with the end of Hetai Life Insurance’s three-year plan, and it is also the starting point of the new five years. Hetai Life Insurance once publicly stated that in 2022, the company will continue to explore differentiated and distinctive high-quality development models, adhere to the three-wheel drive of investment, liabilities, and internal management, turn losses into profits as soon as possible, and embark on a new differentiated path in the industry's homogeneous competitive landscape.

But it should be noted that, in terms of the directors, supervisors and senior management of Tai Life Insurance, most of them are investment-oriented talents, and insurance business personnel are short of people. For example, Vice Chairman Wang Hao has served as the investment director (vice president) of Dubang Property Insurance, and the investment director of Fide Life Insurance, etc.; even Hu Feng has worked in Evergrande Investment Management Center. At present, only Qiu Xinxin, deputy general manager and financial director, came from actuarial calculating, while the others are responsible for compliance.

Perhaps, on the road ahead, the insurance business managers of Hetai Life Insurance need to be further strengthened. After all, operating insurance companies need to rely on the dual driving force of assets and liabilities.