A huge dragon structure at the Nirvana Memorial Park just outside Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur June 23. The air-conditioned dragon structure stores gilded urn compartments, home to 6,700 urns for cremated ashes. Picture taken on June 22, 2000.HONG KONG, Sept 27 - The concept of Nirvana, implying a transcendent state or escape from suffering, may not resonate with today’s battered market participants. A pitch for a growing business in an under-penetrated market is different though.
Nirvana’s sales spiel to would-be buyers now might be largely unchanged. The death care services market, especially for so-called “pre-need” products, is often likened to that for life insurance - indeed, a Chinese insurer was a cornerstone investor in the company in 2014. The business potential afforded by low rates of cover in many fast-growing Asian emerging markets is a familiar refrain from insurers such as $28 billion Prudential and Richard Li’s upstart rival FWD.
Growth will have been disrupted by the effect of pandemic lockdowns on the ability of Nirvana’s sales force to canvas for new business. At $1.6 billion, compound growth would have been 9%. That’s just above the rate cited by FWD for the Malaysian life insurance market and would be a more reasonable level.