Swiss Life
Swiss Life (formerly Swiss Life Insurance and Pension Company, shortly Pension Company ) is the largest life insurance company in Switzerland with headquarters in Zurich.
History
The beginnings
The Swiss Life Insurance and Pension Company was founded on September 28, 1857 by Conrad Widmer with the help of Credit Suisse as the first life insurance company in Switzerland. The company form was that of a cooperative. The first Board was composed of eight members, including F. Wild, Zurich Cantonal Government, JJ Rüttimann, Senate and Board of Directors of Credit and Alfred Escher, President of the Government of the Canton of Zurich and Chairman of the Loan. The Board of Directors of sometimes short " Pension Company " mentioned company sat representatives of most of the Swiss cantons. The goal of the founders was " to give the Swiss family fathers on sufficiently solid foundations opportunity to ensure by the sacrifice of a small part of the purchase yours against various vicissitudes of life to a certain degree ."
1866 Widmer received the concession in Prussia. A year later, the pension institution took on the business in Hamburg and Bremen. A branch of the splintered political nor Germany did not exist. Each kingdom, each Duchy had its own chief representative. The hand-written policies was all made out in Zurich. 1885 reached the assets of the Pension Company 20 million francs, so that they could be separated from the Kreditanstalt. After all accounting surpluses should get insured members.
As of 1894, the Pension Company offered one of the first life insurance companies on the possibility to take out disability insurance. Between 1866 and 1987, the Pension Company offices in Germany, France (1898 ), the Netherlands (1900, under the Dutch name " Zwitser Leven » ), Belgium, Great Britain, Spain, Luxembourg and Italy. In 1988 she took over the « La Suisse » Insurance in Lausanne.
The first home of the Pension Company was in the low courts of Zurich parade ground. The rapid expansion left the office in quick succession from the Green Castle on Zwingliplatz, the Cham house on the Lower fences and finally switch to the Alpenquai, where in 1898 the new headquarters was opened. Despite the generous for that time investment further expansion in the interwar years left still be necessary to move. 1937-1939 a modern building designed by the architectural firm of Pfister was created in the vicinity of the old headquarters. This, with from 1961-1963 and later created extensions, houses today the headquarters of the company in Zurich.
The corporation
1997, the Pension Company walked among Manfred Zobl of a cooperative into a publicly traded corporation. Here, from the approximately 600,000 cooperative members were former shareholders. In 1998, the Pension Company / Swiss Life share in the SMI index was recorded.
Like other banks and insurance companies launched the Pension Company under the title " bancassurance " an expansive strategy. Henceforth, should a bank employee also sell insurance policies and insurance advisors and investment funds. In the battle for market share in the financial sector billions acquisitions were at home and abroad made , such as 1999, the acquisition of real estate companies Uto Albis, Livit AG ( from UBS ) and Oscar Weber ( 2000). Competitors in Europe ( Lloyd Continental (France) in 1999, Swiss trust company STG (2000)), IT companies and a stake in the Jungfrau Railway, which wanted to buy before an American investment company, were acquired. Finally took the Pension Company 1999 Ticino Banca del Gottardo. The company was completely restructured within a few years of the life insurer to a financial conglomerate, which was but this has become too big and confusing according to critics.
Shortly afterwards in 2002 to a stop with a new holding company structure, exchange Rentenanstalt / Swiss Life shares and painful adjustments in the books. Banca del Gottardo, acquired at a price of CHF 2.4 billion was worth 1.8 billion. 2004, the value in the books was further revised downwards to CHF 1.5 billion. Several attempts to find a buyer for Banca del Gottardo, failed it.
New business in the United Kingdom was set in 2003. In the same year the STG Swiss Trust Company and the Subsidiary in Spain were eliminated.
New beginning
After this turmoil, " a full load of careless manager and corresponding loss of image [ ... ] Rentenanstalt let fall 2003 the name" daring in 2004 as Swiss Life with a simplified brand structure and a new look a new start.
Only in the Netherlands and Belgium, they continued to perform under the old name on Zwitserleven. The activities there were, however, sold in 2007 and are since April 2008 - despite the further unused brand Zwitserleven - no more to Swiss Life, but the Dutch banking and insurance group SNS REAAL. The UK insurance business was sold to Resolution Life Group, the private equity portfolio of Pantheon Ventures. The life business of «La Suisse" was integrated in 2005.
In November 2007, Swiss Life announced the long been expected sale of Banca del Gottardo. For CHF 1.775 billion took over the Generali subsidiary of BSI SA, Banca del Gottardo, with which it was merged to form a new private banking institution.
On 3 December 2007, Swiss Life announced a public tender offer to acquire a majority interest with the intention of AWD Holding AG. Swiss Life has also been a key product partner of AWD, this AWD should maintain the business model of independent financial advisory and open product platform. The goals of the acquisition, Swiss Life called the access to the growing markets of Central and Eastern Europe and the Austrian market, as well as expanding its market penetration in Germany and a further strengthening of the position in Switzerland. Swiss Life expected, this significantly increase in new business.
This announced acquisition was recorded on the market for various reasons with great skepticism. On the one reported experts point out that the image of AWD as an aggressive sellers of financial and retirement products is not really fit to the business culture of Swiss Life. On the other hand, the independence of the future AWD counseling was strongly questioned, because now a key product partners is at the same time also the majority shareholder. The proposed acquisition is contrary to several more recently put forward by AWD statements. It has also been the purchase price, which was around 36 % above the three- month average price, criticized as too high. Thus, because the value of the Swiss Life share fell on the day of the announcement to 7.15 %, bringing the market value of Swiss Life by around CHF 800 million decreased.
On 13 March 2008, Swiss Life has completed the offer to the shareholders of AWD Holding AG successfully, bringing their share of AWD rose to 86.2 % initially. In mid-August gave Swiss Life announced that they had also taken over the remaining Carsten Maschmeyer 10.46 % and thus keep new 96.71 % of AWD Shares.
In the same media release Swiss Life announced by Carsten Maschmeyer an equity stake of 26.75% of the financial services MLP AG acquired to have. Swiss Life wants to thereby expand its position in the independent financial advice with a focus on retirement in Germany. The surprising step was a highly critical assessment and a sharp price decline of Swiss Life recorded in the financial markets as already at the AWD - takeover stocks. This lost within two days, over 12 % of its value, thus the market value of Swiss Life has fallen by around 1.2 billion Swiss francs.
In March 2009, the Talanx AG and Swiss Life agreed a strategic partnership. To support cooperation, Talanx AG acquired a long-term participation of 9.9 % in Swiss Life. Next took Talanx from Swiss Life share of 8.4 % in MLP.
In November 2012, Swiss Life announced to write off the carrying value of the Company AWD around CHF 600 million. In addition, from April 2013 abandoned the AWD brand and replaced by the name of Swiss Life Select.
President of General Management ( CEO )
Products
Both for individuals and for companies with various products and services are offered, in addition to disability, accident and pension insurance, unit-linked insurance and asset management. The products are at least partially distributed in multi-level marketing, which can lead to high selling pressure on the consultants.
Since 17 June 2011, the Swiss Life is the first insurance to hedge against a bad reputation on the Internet - the so-called e - reputation - at.
Sponsoring
Swiss Life is committed to its sponsorship in sport and culture, among others, the Swiss national football team, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. The partnership between Swiss Life and Circus Knie was disbanded in 2008.
Group investments
In addition to the life insurance business, the Swiss Life Group is also in the non-life business operates:
- Swiss Life Asset Management, Zurich
- Livit AG, Zurich, Real Estate
- Swiss Life Selecton AG, Zurich
- Swiss Life Funds AG, Lugano, fund company
- Swiss Life Network, Zurich
- AWD Holding AG, Hanover, financial services consulting and brokerage (equity component 97.71 %)