GEORGE TOWN, Grand Cayman, April 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As the Caribbean navigates a time of global uncertainty and regional transformation, a new leader is rising from the Cayman Islands. André Ebanks, Leader of The Caymanian Community Party (TCCP), brings a compelling blend of global insight and grassroots connection that signals a fresh direction for modern governance in the region.

Ebanks’ career reflects an ideal balance of private sector success and public service. A former legal professional and the Cayman Islands’ Representative to the UK and Europe, he went on to serve as Deputy Premier. His leadership is marked by a rare combination of intellect, diplomacy, and authentic community engagement, positioning him as a standout figure in Caribbean politics.

What sets Ebanks apart is his ability to bridge global and local priorities. Equally at home in international finance circles and local community gatherings, he offers an innovative yet grounded approach. His focus remains on improving the lives of Caymanians—especially children, families, and the elderly—while also navigating the demands of a sophisticated, service-based economy.

Under his leadership, the TCCP has formed a diverse and balanced team that reflects the evolving identity of the Cayman Islands. With an even gender split—five women and five men—the team includes well-known leaders such as former Premier Wayne Panton, former Speaker Katherine Ebanks-Wilks, Ministers like Sabrina Turner and Osbourne Bodden, and a respected Parliamentary Secretary in Heather Bodden. They are joined by new voices including Robert Bodden, Emily DeCou, Anthony Ramoon, and Natasha Whitelocke.

“Our vision is clear,” says Ebanks. “Cayman can lead not only in financial services, but also in social innovation, environmental responsibility, and inclusive economic growth. The key is embracing change, while holding fast to our values.”

The TCCP’s platform is comprehensive and action-oriented, tackling Cayman’s most pressing issues—rising living costs, housing shortages, education reform, and immigration policy. Their proposals emphasize economic innovation, strong governance, and anti-corruption, aiming to create a more equitable and sustainable society.

As the April 30th elections draw near, the rise of Ebanks and the TCCP signals more than a potential shift in power. It reflects a larger movement toward a Caribbean future shaped by vision, optimism and integrity.  Their approach combines ambition with a track record of delivery, offering hope not only to Caymanians but to the broader region.

This evolving leadership model—rooted in both experience and innovation—could provide a blueprint for the Caribbean as it seeks to meet the demands of the 21st century. In André Ebanks, the Cayman Islands may have found not just a national leader, but a regional symbol of what modern, effective governance can truly look like.

About André Ebanks:
Leader of the Caymanian Community Party and former Deputy Premier, Ebanks is known for combining financial insight with deep community focus, helping to position Cayman as a socially aware global financial hub.

About TCCP:
The Caymanian Community Party is committed to a just, prosperous, and sustainable Cayman through inclusive leadership and forward-thinking policy.

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HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, April 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter “Ping An” or the “Group”, HKEX: 2318; SSE: 601318) today announced its first quarter financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2025.

With macroeconomic policies continuing to exert their effects, China’s economy achieved a steady start, maintaining an upward trend in the first three months of 2025. However, foundations for sustained economic recovery and growth still needed to be strengthened due to an increasingly complex and severe external environment, subdued domestic effective demand, and volatile capital markets. Ping An maintained steady performance with solid fundamentals in overall operations by focusing on its core financial businesses, driving innovation, and pursuing high-quality development.

The Group’s operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company rose 2.4% year on year to RMB37,907 million in the first three months of 2025. Life and health insurance (“Life & Health”) business’s operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company rose 5.0% year on year to RMB26,864 million. The Group’s total assets rose above RMB13 trillion to RMB13.18 trillion as of March 31, 2025. Life & Health business developed steadily with enhanced multi-channel capabilities and high quality. New business value (“NBV”) rose strongly by 34.9% year on year to RMB12,891 million and NBV margin grew 10.4 pps year on year to 32.0% in the first three months of 2025. Notably, NBV from the bancassurance channel and community finance channel jumped 170.8% and 171.3% year on year respectively. Ping An further advanced its integrated finance model. Retail customers increased 1.0% from the beginning of the year to nearly 245 million as of March 31, 2025. The retention rate of retail customers holding four or more contracts within the Group was 98.0%. Ping An further advanced its health and senior care strategy. Nearly 63% of Ping An’s nearly 245 million retail customers were entitled to service benefits in the health and senior care ecosystem as of March 31, 2025. Ping An’s insurance funds achieved sound investment results. The investment portfolio achieved an unannualized comprehensive investment yield of 1.3% in the first three months of 2025, up 0.2 pps year on year.

1.    Deepening Integrated Finance; Strengthening Multichannel Development in Life Insurance

Ping An enhanced the development of retail customers under a customer needs-oriented philosophy. The Group’s retail customers increased 1.0% from the beginning of the year to nearly 245 million and contracts per retail customer grew 0.3% from the beginning of the year to 2.93 as of March 31, 2025. High customer retention. The retention rate of customers holding four or more contracts within the Group was 98.0% as of March 31, 2025, 11.9 pps higher than that of those holding only one contract. Strong customer growth. There were 8.64 million new customers in the first three months of 2025, up 20.0% year on year. Deep product penetration. Penetration rates of life and health insurance products as well as property and casualty insurance products were relatively high and grew steadily to 45.8% (up 0.9 pps from the beginning of the year) and 30.7% (up 0.1 pps from the beginning of the year) respectively as of March 31, 2025.

Life & Health NBV achieved robust growth. Ping An Life continued to enhance its channels and improve business quality under the “4 channels + 3 products” strategy in the first three months of 2025. By upgrading “insurance + service” solutions, Ping An Life continuously strengthened its presence in health and senior care sectors and provided customers with professional, heartwarming services, enabling high-quality development of the company. Life & Health NBV grew 34.9% year on year to RMB12,891 million with NBV margin based on annualized new premium rising 10.4 pps year on year to 32.0% in the first three months of 2025. Significantly enhanced multichannel capabilities. Through continuously deepening transformation and focusing on a team development framework that prioritized the cultivation, recruitment and fostering of high-quality agents, the agent channel NBV increased by 11.5% year on year, and NBV per agent increased by 14.0% year on year. Bancassurance channel NBV surged by 170.8% year on year, as Ping An Life adhered to a diversification strategy, standardized outlet operations, and developed high-performing teams. The community finance channel NBV soared by 171.3% year on year, as Ping An Life had set up 131 community finance outlets in 93 cities, and built elite teams of nearly 24,000 “high-competence, high-performing, and high-quality” agents as of March 31, 2025. The community finance channel’s overall persistency ratio of “retained customers” improved by 0.5 pps year on year in the first three months of 2025, thanks to continuous breakthroughs in customer development. “Insurance + Service” solutions were upgraded. Ping An Life provided nearly 10 million customers with health management services in the first three months of 2025. Over 190,000 customers qualified for home-based senior care services, which covered 75 cities nationwide as of March 31, 2025. Ping An had unveiled a total of six premium health and senior care communities in five cities as of March 31, 2025, which are currently under construction. The communities in Shanghai and Shenzhen are scheduled to open for business in the second half of 2025.

Ping An P&C maintained steady insurance business growth and good business quality. Ping An P&C’s premium income grew 7.7% year on year to RMB85,138 million and insurance revenue rose 0.7% year on year to RMB81,153 million in the first three months of 2025. Overall combined ratio improved by 3.0 pps year on year to 96.6%. The company accelerated transformation by actively applying AI technologies represented by DeepSeek to its core business processes, optimizing operational and business models to forge a new driver of high-quality growth.

Ping An’s insurance funds investment achieved solid results. The investment portfolio achieved an unannualized comprehensive investment yield of 1.3%, up 0.2 pps year on year. The Group’s insurance funds investment portfolio grew 3.3% from the beginning of the year to over RMB5.92 trillion as of March 31, 2025.

Ping An Bank maintained steady business performance and stable asset quality. The bank’s revenue and net profit totaled RMB33,709 million and RMB14,096 million respectively in the first three months of 2025 as a result of market changes and business mix optimization. Non-performing loan ratio and provision coverage ratio were 1.06% and 236.53% respectively as of March 31, 2025. Core tier 1 capital adequacy ratio rose 0.29 pps from the beginning of the year to 9.41% as of March 31, 2025.

2.    Differentiation-Enabled Core Financial Businesses Under the Health and Senior Care Strategy

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Ping An’s health and senior care ecosystem created both standalone direct value and huge indirect value by enabling its core financial businesses via differentiated “Product + Service” offerings. Nearly 63% of Ping An’s nearly 245 million retail customers were entitled to service benefits in the health and senior care ecosystem as of March 31, 2025. They held approximately 3.37 contracts and RMB61,200 in assets under management per capita, 1.6 times and 4.0 times those held by retail customers not entitled to these service benefits respectively.

Ping An made significant progress in customer development by effectively integrating insurance with health and senior care services. Ping An’s health and senior care ecosystem enables its core financial businesses through customer acquisition and retention. Synergies between integrated finance and the health and senior care ecosystem give Ping An Health and PKU Healthcare Group access to corporate and retail customers of Ping An’s financial businesses. They also give companies including Ping An Life access to service benefits in the Group’s health and senior care ecosystem. The Group’s health and senior care ecosystem had over 42,000 paying corporate clients and generated over RMB38.5 billion in health insurance premium income in the first three months of 2025. Over 190,000 customers qualified for home-based senior care services, which covered 75 cities nationwide as of March 31, 2025. Ping An has unveiled premium health and senior care communities in 5 cities.

The proprietary flagship business maintained an upward trend, while the integrated “online, in-store, in-home, and in-company” service network was further optimized. In respect of proprietary flagships, PKU Healthcare Group’s revenue grew steadily to approximately RMB1,200 million in the first three months of 2025. Peking University International Hospital’s revenue grew about 9% year on year to approximately RMB550 million, and the number of outpatient visits exceeded 302,000 in the first three months of 2025. In respect of partner networks, Ping An provided services via an “online, in-store, in-home and in-company” network by integrating domestic and overseas premium resources including medical services, health services, commodities and medicines. Ping An had about 50,000 in-house doctors and external doctors in China as of March 31, 2025. It also partnered with nearly 37,000 hospitals (including all top 100 hospitals and 3A hospitals), approximately 105,000 health management institutions and nearly 239,000 pharmacies (up by over 3,500 from the beginning of the year) in China as of March 31, 2025.

3.    Building a “9+5+3” Moat to Implement AI Technologies; Integrating Large Models with Business Application Scenarios

The Group built a “9+5+3” moat to implement AI technologies. The nine databases process over 1 billion data entries per day on average, covering 240 million financial customers, providing deep insights into user needs and enabling user experience improvements. The five labs (Micro-Expression Lab, Computer Vision Lab, Speech & NLP Lab, Data Analytics Lab, and Silicon Valley Lab) continuously explore cutting-edge technologies. The three tech member companies (Ping An Technology, Ping An Health, and OneConnect) focus on expanding the breadth and depth of AI application scenarios. Ping An has accumulated vast amounts of data that can be used to train large models, and continuously develops vertical large models for domains including finance, health care and senior care. Trained with a domain data corpus containing over 3.2 trillion tokens, approximately 310 thousand hours of labeled speeches and over 7.5 billion images, Ping An’s large speech models, large language models, and large vision models have achieved industry-leading accuracy rates in scenarios. The Group cumulatively won 45 championships in domestic and overseas AI competitions, and cumulatively filed 55,435 patent applications as of March 31, 2025, leading most international financial institutions.

Technology enabled core financial businesses by reducing costs, enhancing efficiency, and mitigating risks. The volume of services provided by Ping An’s AI service representatives reached about 450 million times, accounting for 80% of Ping An’s total customer service volume in the first three months of 2025. By efficiently addressing inquiries and resolving complaints, they significantly reduced human service costs. Via smart underwriting, smart claim settlement and smart policy renewal, 93% of life insurance policies were underwritten within seconds, 56% of life insurance claims were settled through Smart Quick Claim, and reinstatement of life insurance policies accelerated by 12%. Moreover, Ping An P&C’s claims savings via smart fraud detection grew 14.0% year on year to RMB3.42 billion as Ping An continuously strengthened risk management.

Ping An actively fulfilled its social responsibilities by supporting green development and rural vitalization. The Group’s green insurance premium income amounted to RMB16,880 million and funds provided for rural industrial vitalization via “Rural Communities Support” totaled RMB15,653 million in the first three months of 2025.

Looking ahead, the national strategies of innovation-driven development and the expansion of domestic demand will continue to provide strong momentum for domestic demand growth and economic recovery. Meanwhile, rising complexity, severity, and uncertainty in the external environment pose both opportunities and challenges. Ping An firmly believes that the industry’s long-term fundamentals will remain positive. With stronger business resilience and enhanced management capabilities, Ping An is committed to deepening its core financial businesses and driving performance growth. The Group will continue to advance its technology-driven “integrated finance + health and senior care” strategy, implement digital transformation and “worry-free, time-saving, and money-saving” value proposition, bolster five key financial sectors (technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance). Ping An is dedicated to creating long-term, stable, and sustainable value for customers, employees, shareholders, and society.

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SHANGHAI, April 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — On a recent episode of Bloomberg’s China Show, David (Jingfeng) Huang, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Yatsen Holding Ltd. (NYSE: YSG), offered a revealing look into how the Chinese beauty tech company is evolving from a trend-savvy startup into a global innovation leader.

From a growing portfolio of brands to deep investments in science and R&D, Huang positioned Yatsen as a rare hybrid—both agile and deeply rooted in long-term thinking. His message was clear: beauty is being redefined, and Yatsen intends to lead the next era.

A Vision to Build a Tech-Driven Beauty Powerhouse

Founded in 2016, Yatsen first captured attention through Perfect Diary, now a mainstream brand in China. Since then, the company has expanded to 11 brands, spanning mass, masstige, and premium tiers.

Its lineup includes France’s Galenic, focused on cellular anti-aging, the sensorial British skincare brand EVE LOM, and dermatologist-backed Dr.Wu. Together, these brands reflect a deliberate strategy: address varied consumer needs with credible, differentiated propositions.

“Our vision was always to build a next-generation beauty tech company,” Huang explained. “From trend-driven to science-backed, we now offer products across all major segments—what unites them is innovation.”

China’s Beauty Consumers: Smart, Selective, and Innovation-Hungry

The domestic beauty market in China is vast—valued at over RMB 400 billion—yet remains fragmented. Even the top players only command single-digit market shares, giving agile innovators room to grow.

Despite recent macro challenges, Huang is confident: “Chinese consumers are still highly willing to pay—as long as the product truly delivers.”

That belief led to one of Yatsen’s breakout hits: the Biolip Essence Lipstick. Priced similarly to global luxury brands, this hybrid product combines high-performance color with skincare benefits, including patented ingredients that stimulate collagen and reduce lip wrinkles.

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“It’s not just makeup. It’s biotech in a lipstick,” Huang said. “And the market responded—we’ve seen strong repurchase and loyalty.”

Science-Led Premiumization: A Strategic Pivot

Yatsen’s transformation goes beyond branding. In 2021, the company initiated a strategic shift: lean harder into skincare, R&D, and innovation-led premiumization. The move was both ambitious and risky, as it involved restructuring operations, reallocating capital, and riding out a tough market cycle.

“Turning around a public company isn’t easy,” said Huang. “But we knew where the market was going—toward science-backed, benefit-driven beauty. We invested over $80 million in R&D, filed 240+ patents, and published in top-tier journals like Nature Medicine and Science Bulletin.”

He added that 3% of Yatsen’s revenue is now allocated to R&D—putting the company among global leaders in innovation spend ratio in the beauty category.

Profitability Resumed, Market Confidence Growing

While Yatsen’s stock price has yet to return to IPO levels, Huang emphasized the fundamentals are stronger than ever.

“Since last quarter, investor feedback has been increasingly positive. But more important than sentiment is performance—we’ve resumed profitable growth, with a long-term focus on value creation,” he said.

The turnaround, built on disciplined brand building and product innovation, has earned Yatsen growing respect among long-term investors.

“We believe the equity market is a weighing machine over time. Our job is to do the right things—R&D, great products, strong brands—and the value will follow.”

Resilience in a Volatile Global Landscape

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Huang also addressed concerns around trade and supply chain disruptions, particularly in light of global tariff tensions.

While the beauty industry is highly globalized, Yatsen has insulated itself well. Most of its components and ingredients are sourced domestically, and its primary market remains mainland China.

“We’re not immune, but we’re well-positioned,” he said. “We monitor risks—supplier stability, cross-border issues—but our current exposure is manageable. Still, we stay agile.”

When asked whether cost increases from potential tariffs would be passed on to consumers, Huang pointed to the brand’s focus on delivering value, not just price.

“Consumers are smart. Post-COVID, they’re more price-sensitive, but they’re not chasing the lowest price. They want high value—products that justify their cost.”

A Different Playbook From Global Competitors

Huang believes that Yatsen’s unique blend of local insight and global scientific ambition sets it apart from multinationals struggling to regain ground in China.

“We’re not just following trends—we’re deeply embedded in where Chinese consumer preferences are heading,” he said. “Biotech, neuroscience, ingredient innovation—this is where we’re betting big.”

Yatsen is already seeing results from this strategy with loyal followings for products under brands like Galenic and high-performance serums featuring vitamin A and C.

In a nod to its future direction, Huang revealed that Yatsen is now exploring neuroscience applications in skincare—a niche with massive long-term potential.

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Capital Strategy: Transparency, Optionality, and Growth

On the capital markets front, Huang acknowledged investor concerns around ADR delistings and so on. But Yatsen is taking a disciplined, transparent approach.

The company completed a $200 million share buyback, reinforcing confidence and alignment with shareholders.

Yatsen represents a rare blend of scale, agility, and innovation depth. With proven market traction, a science-led product pipeline, and a profitable operating model, the company is positioned to capture long-term share in a fragmented, fast-evolving industry. In terms of Yatsen’s vision,  “We’re not just making beauty products,” Huang concluded, “We’re inventing the future of beauty—and we’re just getting started.”

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