Japan's Dai-ichi Life Insurance to buy Protective Life for $5.7bn

Dai-ichi Life Insurance said Wednesday it would buy US-based Protective Life for $5.7 billion in a record deal, marking the latest move by a Japanese firm to scoop up overseas assets to counter a declining market at home.

The company, one of Japan's biggest insurers, said it would pay $70 per share and would issue up to 250 billion yen ($2.4 billion) in new shares to help finance the deal.

The price is a 34 percent premium on Protective Life shares when they closed on Friday in New York, before reports of the deal.

Dai-ichi said the deal for Protective Life, a mid-sized firm based in the southern US state of Alabama, was aimed at broadening its overseas business beyond Asia by entering the world's biggest market for insurance sold to consumers.

"With the acquisition, the group will firmly establish itself in the US insurance market, adding to Japan and the Asia Pacific region," Dai-ichi said in a statement.

"The group anticipates the acquisition to be a transformative event for the group?s aspiration to become a 'global insurance group representing Asia', enabling us to accelerate growth and expand our business further," it added.

The takeover would be the largest-ever acquisition of a foreign firm by a Japanese insurer, eclipsing the $4.7-billion takeover of US insurer Philadelphia Consolidated by Tokio Marine in 2008.