The Asian financial services group, which has moved into the European private wealth management space, has logged a strong set of profit figures.

China-headquartered Fosun International, which has recently announced moves to acquire stakes in two European private banking houses, said yesterday that attributable profits stood at RMB3.617 billion ($566 million) in the six months to 30 June, a 97.2 per cent surge on a year ago.

“With the `insurance + investment’ twin-driver core strategy, Fosun has accomplished further enhancements on both the financing-end and investment-end as well as the optimization of the overall asset structure during the first half of 2015,” Fosun said in a statement.

The firm, which operates in a variety of segments besides financial services, said that on its insurance segment, investible assets reached a record of RMB143.199 billion , up by RMB36.414 billion as compared to the end of 2014.

Fosun in late July said it intended to buy Belgium-domiciled BHF Kleinwort Benson Group, a bank with a strong German heritage and business footprint. Such a deal would add to an agreement Fosun already struck to buy Hauck & Aufhäuser, the venerable German private banking and financial firm. (For further details, see here.)

In its results, Fosun said other achievements in its latest reporting period included the official start in operations of Zhejiang Internet Commerce Bank, which was jointly established by Fosun and Ant Financial Services Group under Alibaba Group. Fosun, as the second largest shareholder, owns a 25 per cent stake.

In the beginning of 2015, Fosun completed its acquisition of 20 per cent interest of the US specialty insurance company Ironshore, while announcing its plan to acquire the remaining 80 per cent interest of Ironshore.