Generali posts best results since 2007
Italian insurance group Generali posted its best half year operating result in the last eight years, despite a tough macroeconomic environment.
Its profits hiked 21 percent to €1.3 billion in the first half of 2015, compared with €1.1 billion in the first half of 2014, while gross written premiums (GWP) increased by 7.3 percent to € 38.2 billion in the first half of 2015, compared with €35.3 billion in the same period of the prior year.
Generali’s operating result also jumped 11.3 percent to €2.8 billion in the half, compared with €2.5 billion in the prior year period, while its combined ratio improved slightly to 92.6 percent.
Within its life division, GWP increased 10.6 percent to €27 billion in the first half of 2015, compared with €24 billion in the first half of 2014, driven by all business lines.
Its P&C segment posted stable GWP of €11.3 billion, driven by Central and Eastern Europe, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Germany.
Mario Greco, Generali group chief executive officer, said: “In just three years we have accomplished one of the most complex turnaround programmes that has ever been pursued in the insurance industry.
“The excellent half-year results demonstrate how Generali has transformed – in spite of an extremely challenging environment – into a global group that is very profitable and solid from a capital perspective, with a renewed and innovative product offering allowing us to maintain attractive rates of revenue growth in most of the markets where we operate.
“These results constitute the best starting point for the execution of the new 2015-2018 strategic plan we presented in May, based on a 50 percent growth of the annual average cash generation, the distribution of more than €5 billion of dividends in the next four years and a further cost reduction of €500 million from 2016 to 2018, maintaining an operating return on equity above 13 percent.
“We expect to improve significantly the net result at year-end compared with 2014, preserving the high profitability growth achieved in the first half of this year.”
