LONDON (Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc, the world’s fourth-biggest bank by market value, will buy out Swiss Life Holding’s stake in two ventures for 228.8 million euros ($305 million), as it seeks to bolster profit from insurance in France.The London-based bank will buy the remaining 50.01 percent stake it doesn’t already own in French life insurer Erisa and property and casualty insurer Erisa IARD, HSBC said yesterday.

HSBC aims to double the proportion of profit it earns from selling insurance products over the next five years.

The bank’s push to expand sales of savings, life-insurance and general insurance products through its branches comes amid rising demand from individuals seeking to boost retirement benefits.

“This signals HSBC’s ambitions in building up its insurance presence,” said Kent Yau, a Hong Kong-based deputy head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi International Ltd. “Insurance is a field that will really let HSBC ride on its commercial banking strengths, such as its networks and client relationships.”

HSBC wants insurance products to contribute 20 percent of its total pretax profit by 2012, compared with ten percent as of the first half of 2006, HSBC spokesman Richard Lindsay said in January. The company will seek “acquisitions and organic growth” in insurance, said chief executive officer Michael Geoghegan at a financial services conference organised by Morgan Stanley in London yesterday.

In 1986, Swiss Life and HSBC created Erisa, which provides life-insurance products through HSBC’s banking network in France. Erisa IARD, the property- and casualty-insurance arm of HSBC in France, was created by the two companies in 1991.

The purchase must be approved by regulators, the bank said.

HSBC’s shares have declined 7.1 percent in the past year amid concern over bad mortgage loans in the US, where the bank is the biggest lender to subprime borrowers, or people with poor credit histories.

The nine-member FTSE 350 Banks Index gained 1.4 percent in the period, making HSBC the second-worst performer.

The bank earlier this month said it may take three years to stem loan losses in the US, which contributed to a 5.7 percent decline in net income to $7.06 billion in the second half of the year.

Zurich-based Swiss Life, which reported yesterday that profit rose 8.5 percent last year, said selling out of the ventures fits into its expansion plans.

“For us and our growth targets, we’re much more flexible doing it on our own with Swiss Life-branded products,” Swiss Life chief financial officer Thomas Mueller said from Zurich in a call with reporters.