Munich Allianz has restructured its responsibilities on the Executive Board and will reduce the size of the body by two at the end of the year. In addition to Sergio Balbinot, whose age-related departure has been fixed for a year, Ivan de la Sota will also leave the eleven-strong board. The Spaniard, who worked for Allianz for a good 30 years, has been a member of the executive committee since 2018.
With the reduction of the Executive Board, the announcement by CEO Oliver Bäte at the Investors’ Day in December is beginning to take shape. At that time he announced that Allianz was to be transformed from a financial to a management holding company.
Ivan de la Sota was previously responsible for the so-called Allianz Customer Model (ACM). This should simplify products across borders and ideally be offered in a uniform way. For years, the project has been one of the core topics of CEO Oliver Bäte, who repeatedly criticized the independence of the individual national companies in product design. De la Sota made progress with this mammoth task, but there was always criticism internally.
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In the remuneration report for the past year, in which the supervisory board compares the performance of the individual board members, Ivan de la Sota came last. There has been speculation about his departure for a long time.
Allianz officially justified his departure by saying that the processes for the ACM are now so advanced that the employees can return to their original lines of property, life and health insurance.
For the remaining nine executives, who will be part of the Allianz Board of Management from next year, there will be a number of additional tasks in addition to their previous activities. De la Sota’s and Balbinot’s responsibilities pass to her.
Christopher Townsend takes over the business in Latin America, Spain and Portugal. The Briton has so far been responsible for the industrial customer division AGCS, the reinsurance company Allianz RE and the business in Great Britain, Ireland and Africa.
Additional tasks for the board members
Renate Wagner will be responsible for Asia and Australia in the future. As CFO for the Asian business, she knows the region from her previous area of responsibility. So far she has been responsible for human resources and business with takeovers. Last year she managed the reorganization of Allianz Germany, which is now largely complete.
Wagner is considered a possible candidate for the position of Allianz boss if CEO Oliver Bäte does not extend his contract, which runs until 2024. Internally, Wagner is considered assertive. With her new area of responsibility in Asia, she will also be responsible for a region in which Allianz expects high growth in the coming years.
It is no surprise, however, that Andreas Wimmer is now also responsible for life insurance. He has been responsible for the asset management division on the Management Board for a year. Before that he was head of the German life insurance company in Stuttgart, which has been delivering high profits to the head office for years. The idea that asset management and life insurance should be more closely interlinked has been discussed for a long time. With the reorganization of the Executive Board, it is now being implemented.
Finance department is upgraded
CFO Giulio Terzariol will have a key position in the future. The so-called Safeguard areas of risk, law and compliance will then be established next to his team. “We want to concentrate the relevant skills and thus further strengthen the effect of these functions,” said Oliver Bäte in an interview with the Handelsblatt on Friday.
This step had become necessary because the financial regulator Bafin had called for improvements in control, particularly in the areas of risk management and compliance, as part of the review of the failed structured alpha strategy in the USA.
In addition, Allianz and the major Italian bank Unicredit announced on Friday morning that they want to unbundle their financial holdings, which have existed in Croatia for many years. In this context, the Dax group is selling its 11.7 percent stake in Zagrebacka Banka (Zaba) to the majority owner Unicredit. The listed Zaba is one of the largest financial houses in Croatia and is currently valued at around 2.7 billion euros.
In return, Zaba is giving up its 16.8 percent stake in Allianz Hrvatska to the insurer. Operationally, both financial companies, which also work closely together in Germany, want to continue to cooperate in Croatia. Unicredit thus has a stake of more than 95 percent in the Croatian bank.
Allianz is likely to generate a three-digit million proceeds from the transaction. Your block of shares in Zagrebacka Banka is worth around 0.3 billion euros on the stock exchange. Their participation in the Allianz subsidiary is likely to be significantly lower.
More: Allianz boss Oliver Bäte: “Not every company will survive”