China International Capital Corp and China Galaxy Securities are lead underwriters for China Life's share sale. Citic Securities is acting as its financial adviser.

China Life has 648,000 insurance sales staff and 12,000 sales outlets across the country, occupying about 49.4 per cent of the market share in the first half of this year, the company said.

The life insurer made 5.45 billion yuan (US$695 million) in net profit last year, up from 2.91 billion yuan (US$371 million) in 2004.

China Life chalked up 5.81 billion yuan (US$741 million) in net profit in the first half of this year, a whopping year-on-year increase of 61.67 per cent, the company said.

A number of local insurers are planning to make domestic listings, encouraged by the bullish domestic stock market.

Ping An Insurance, China's second-largest life insurer, is planning to issue 1.15 billion A shares in the first quarter of 2007.

Ping An, which is also listed in Hong Kong, is expected to raise an estimated US$4.5 billion if its price is set according to its current Hong Kong share price.

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co (CPIC) and China Reinsurance and Taikang Life Insurance are also planning to list on the domestic bourse.

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