Metropolitan Life Insurance Company - International Presence

International Presence

Outside of the U.S., MetLife operates in Latin America, Europe, Asia’s Pacific region, and the Middle East, with leading market positions in Mexico, Japan, South Korea and Chile.

On March 8, 2010, Met Life announced its intent to purchase the international leader life-insurance business, American Life Insurance Company (Alico), from American International Group (AIG). MetLife, which completed the deal on November 1, 2010, paid approximately $7.2 billion in cash and $9.0 billion in MetLife equity and other securities. The securities portion of the deal consisted of 78.2 million shares of MetLife common stock, 6.9 million shares of contingent convertible preferred stock and 40 million equity units. The values of the common and preferred stock were based on the closing price of MetLife’s common stock on October 29. Upon completion of the purchase, MetLife became a leading competitor in Japan, the world’s second-largest life insurance market, and moved into a top five market position in many high growth emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. The deal added 20 million customers to MetLife’s 70 million and according to Barron’s Magazine more than doubled the percentage of operating profits that MetLife gets abroad to 40%.

In India MetLife has an affiliate company India Insurance Company Limited (MetLife) which has operated in India since 2001. This company has its headquartered in Bangalore and Gurgaon and was jointly owned by MetLife and a few local indian financial companies. In 2012 an agreement was made with local Indian bank, the Punjab National Bank to establish a strategic alliance and for it to take a 30% share in MetLife India. The state owned bank would in return sell MetLife insurance products in its branches.