Swiss insurer Baloise in April 2019 said it is acquiring the Belgian insurer Fidea for 480 million euros ($543 million) from China’s state-controlled Anbang Insurance Group to boost its position in the Belgian non-life and life insurance market.

The acquisition of Antwerp-based Fidea means that Baloise will employ around 1,600 employees in Belgium.

Baloise said the deal will increase its share of the non-life business in Belgium by 1.7 percentage points to 8.5 percent and its life business by 0.7 percentage points to 4.2 percent. Baloise is augmenting its business in Europe with its third Belgian takeover in the last decade, while Anbang retreats from a slew of more than $30 billion in deals in recent years to shore up its balance sheet.

Anbang’s former chairman Wu Xiaohui, who had led the expansion push, was sentenced in May 2018 to 18 years imprisonment for corruption. Anbang is under the control of the Chinese regulator since February, 2018.

Neither Baloise in Belgium nor Fidea are members of any multinational pooling network.