OVB Holding

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OVB Holding AG

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN DE0006286560
founding 1970
Seat Cologne , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Mario Freis, CEO
Number of employees 620
sales 257.8 million euros (2019)
Branch Financial distribution
Website www.ovb.eu
As of December 31, 2019

The OVB Holding AG is a financial sales , which operates subsidiaries in 15 European countries. With almost 3.8 million customers, OVB is one of the largest financial brokerage groups in Europe. The company is listed on the stock exchange. Significant major shareholders with a stake of around 53% are companies such as the Signal Iduna Group , Basler Beteiligungsholding GmbH with 33% and Generali CEE Holding BV with 11%. The free float currently includes around 3.0% of the shares. As a management holding company, OVB Holding AG heads the OVB Group. According to the articles of association, the purpose of the company is to manage companies that are particularly active in the business areas of advising and brokering financial and similar services, advising and brokering capital investments, building society contracts, insurance contracts and advising and brokering real estate investments of all kinds.

As a bancassurance company , OVB mediates the services of banks , insurance companies , building societies and investment companies . To this end, OVB works with around 5,000 full-time financial brokers across Europe. The target groups are primarily private households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The financial brokers act as independent commercial agents on the basis of commissions for the brokered financial products in the form of structured sales.

Company history

The company was founded in 1970 by Otto Wittschier (1938–2008), a former regional manager of Investors Overseas Services , together with Bert Schwarz and Bruno Tönnes (1939–2018) with headquarters in Cologne. The name OVB was originally derived as an abbreviation of "Organization for the mediation of building society savings contracts", as OVB started its business with the brokerage of building society contracts. In order to take account of the all-finance concept, however, the name “OVB Organization for Asset Consulting and Financing” was given early on. Today the abbreviation OVB is used as an independent company name.

In 1983 the OVB relief organization “Menschen in Not e. V. ", which mainly supports various social projects in Germany. According to the company, it is mainly financed by donations from employees.

Between 1985 and 1995, all of the founding shareholders' shares in OVB Allfinanzvermittlungsgesellschaft mbh & Co. KG were sold to several insurance companies. At the same time the previous shareholders - managing directors handed over the management to a new management.

The OVB Allfinanzvermittlungs GmbH & Co. KG , which had previously worked exclusively in Germany, was in the OVB Holding on 4 December 2000 Aktiengesellschaft converted. This changed the company's legal form .

In the following years the entire company was restructured with the aim of unbundling the foreign subsidiaries . In this context, the company was given a group structure . The parent company was OVB Holding AG , which holds 100 percent of the shares in each subsidiary . Since then, there are no longer any investments between the subsidiaries. The subsidiaries are the respective OVB sales companies in the various countries. The German national company operates under the name OVB Vermögensberatung AG and is also a subsidiary of OVB Holding AG.

In July 2006 the company went public . The initial listing took place in the Prime Standard , the German stock exchange segment with the highest transparency requirements. From June 22, 2009 to November 19, 2009 the OVB Holding AG share was listed in the SDAX .

The board members of the parent company OVB Holding are Mario Freis, Oskar Heitz and Thomas Hücker. Mario Freis was appointed to the Management Board (Sales Department) in 2010 and has been Chairman of the Management Board since February 2016. Oskar Heitz, who has been with the company since 1991, is responsible for finance; Thomas Hücker is Chief Operations Officer.

Since the company's name was changed to a stock corporation, the chairman of the supervisory board was the chairman of the board of directors of the shareholder Deutscher Ring , initially Wolfgang Fauter, who also held the position of deputy chairman of the board of the Deutscher Ring Krankenversicherungsverein a. G. held. In 2010, Michael Johnigk, a member of the Signal Iduna Group's executive board, took over as chairman of the supervisory board.

Key figures

According to a press release by OVB Holding AG, the group generated income from brokerage of around EUR 257.8 million (previous year EUR 231.3 million) in the 2019 financial year. The operating result (earnings before interest and taxes, EBIT ) reached 14.1 million euros (previous year 13.2 million euros). The group result reached 11.0 million euros (previous year 9.6 million euros). In Central and Eastern Europe, brokerage income totaled 122.9 million euros (previous year 116.3 million euros). In Germany, brokerage income was EUR 61.6 million (previous year EUR 59.4 million). In Southern and Western Europe, sales were 73.3 million euros (previous year 55.6 million euros). The Group's EBIT margin was 5.5 percent (previous year: 5.7 percent).

criticism

In the past, OVB was considered to be one of several structured sales organizations where employees are put under pressure and, especially at the beginning, are supposed to convey financial products to their friends and acquaintances. In this type of sales, new employees should initially take advantage of the existing trust in their circle of friends, relatives and acquaintances. The Wirtschaftswoche reported as 2010 that new employees are to enter in a list of names of friends and acquaintances who could be recruited either also as a consultant or who may be interested in financial services and those of the new employees should provide a financial product. If the employee does not enter names on the list, he would be urged to do so. Stiftung Warentest already criticized the methods of financial intermediaries (including the OVB) in 2004 :

  • the employees do not need to have any previous knowledge, as the title of financial intermediary is not protected and
  • the employees are remunerated in the form of commissions depending on their sales (thus the incentive for incorrect advice is particularly great; for example, funds are also brokered if they may be unprofitable for the customer - advice takes place inadequate and the risks of losing money are not mentioned or downplayed).

Nowadays a lot has changed on the legal side in this regard and the factors that are intended to contribute to the financial protection of customers have been strengthened or expanded. There are now further training obligations for the consultants and certain regulations (such as creating an investor profile or recording the current financial situation) must be observed (see Mifid II guideline).

In recent years, the reputation of the job has changed significantly for the better and the service has become more important due to the low key interest rate, which means that even more people trust the know-how of the financial advisors.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c OVB Annual Report 2019 In: ovb.eu , March 26, 2020, accessed on April 20, 2020.
  2. ↑ Financial calendar and financial reports. March 21, 2019, accessed April 17, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Articles of Association of OVB Holding AG In: ovb.eu , July 5, 2018, accessed on April 20, 2020 (PDF; 45 kB)
  4. ↑ The OVB relief organization “People in Need e. V. " accessed on September 28, 2018.
  5. ↑ Mario Freis new CEO of OVB Holding AG In: ovb.eu , February 5, 2016, accessed on September 26, 2018. (PDF; 52 kB)
  6. ↑ OVB starts its 50th anniversary year with strong figures In: ovb.eu , March 26, 2020, accessed on April 20, 2020.
  7. ^ Ingrid Herden: Controversial methods: The OVB mesh. In: wiwo.de. February 10, 2010, accessed September 24, 2018 .
  8. ↑ MiFID II. Accessed April 22, 2020 .