Prudential May Sell UK, US Assets to Get Approval for AIA Deal

After completing its expansion into Asia, Prudential says it's taking into consideration the idea of selling its business assets in the United States and the UK.

While this isn't a surety at this time, it's thought there is a stronger possibility that they'll sell the UK assets if it comes down to it, or if they decide to keep one of the two.

The reason behind selling the US and UK segments of the company would be to calm shareholders who believe their overpaying for AIA, the Asian division of AIG, the giant insurer based in the U.S. which has failed.

Prudential has agreed to pay $35.5 billion to take control of AIA. The sale of the UK and US units would raise over $15 billion.

Prudential is readying to publish the $21 billion prospectus for the rights issue on Wednesday.

In order for the deal to go through, 75 percent of shareholders must agree to support the deal, which will be voted on May 27. That is a significant challenge to CEO Tidjane Thiam, who has been wooing shareholders to approve of the deal.

While Thiam may have to offer a carrot of some type to turn shareholders around, he wants to primarily get support from the merits of the deal itself. One way he's going to do that is to show how he can improve the value of AIA through a variety of measures.

Even so, he may have to end up divesting of UK and US assets in order to garner the support of large shareholders like Capital Research & Management in order to land the deal.