China strengthened its hand on the international business stage today after its second-largest insurer, Ping An, paid €1.8 billion (£1.3bn) to become the largest shareholder in Fortis, the Belgo-Dutch group that has become one of Europe's most powerful players in financial services.

The acquisition by Ping An, a £46 billion insurer listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong, gave it a 4.18 per cent stake in Fortis and saw its president, Louis Cheung, installed on the firm's board as a non-executive director.

It follows high-profile investments by China-backed corporations in financial groups as diverse as Barclays, the UK's third largest banking group and Blackstone, the quoted American private equity giant.

It also comes just days after Citigroup, the world's largest bank, received a $7.5 billion cash injection from Abu Dhabi.

Ping An's Fortis move, which did not appear to involve any cross-selling agreements, pushed shares in the Belgo-Dutch group more than 3.5 per cent higher to €18.80.

Shares in Fortis, Belgium's biggest financial services group, have tumbled by a third since the beginning of the year amid worries about its exposure to the credit markets and hefty payouts on insurance losses.

Ping An, based the south China city of Shenzhen, is half as big again as Fortis, which is listed on Euronext in both Brussels and Amsterdam and has a market value of about £34 billion.

It is larger than any London-listed bank except sprawling international financial group HSBC.

Fortis was part of the consortium, which included RBS, that emerged victorious from a six-month, €71 billion bid battle to buy the Dutch-based banking and insurance group ABN Amro.

Ping An is booming in its home market, posting a fourfold increase in third quarter profits to 3.6 billion yuan (£236 million). But, like many of its counterparts, it is keen to expand internationally, particularly through strategic stakes in European or American companies.

Peter Ma, chairman of Ping An, said: "The deal will realise valuable benefits because of Fortis's and Ping An's shared business model of an integrated banking and insurance platform."

Ping An, which is locked in to the investment for three years, has agreed not to take its stake above 4.99 per cent without clearing it first with Fortis and has pledged not to launch a full takeover.

The acquisition is the latest in a growing line of strategic deal by Chinese companies, each of which has been backed by the state.

In July, China Development Bank paid £1.6 billion for a 3.1 per cent stake in Barclays. At the same time, the UK bank also received a $2 billion cash boost from Temasek, the Singapore investment group, to help fund its eventually aborted bid for ABN.

Last month, state conglomerate CITIC paid $5.6 billion for a 20 per cent stake in Standard Bank of South Africa, and a further $1 billion to secure a stake of about 6 per cent in Bear Stearns, the embattled Wall Street securities house.

China's state investment agency agreed in May to buy a stake of just under 10 per cent in Blackstone, just ahead of listing in the US.

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