Talanx

Talanx AG
legal form	Corporation
ISIN	DE000TLX1005
founding	1996
Seat	Hanover , Germany
management	Torsten Leue , CEO ; Herbert K. Haas , Chairman of the Supervisory Board ;
Number of employees	22,537
sales	39.5 billion euros ; (gross premiums, 2019)
Branch	Financial services
Website	www.talanx.com
	As of December 31, 2019

New office building in Hanover (2011)

The Talanx AG is a listed German insurance group based in Hanover . In terms of gross written premiums, Talanx is the third largest German insurance group (after Allianz and Münchener Rück / ERGO ) and the sixth largest insurance group in Europe. Talanx is active in more than 150 countries. The largest owner with 79.0% of the shares is HDI - mutual insurance company , which essentially acts as the owner company of the Talanx Group. The remaining 21.0% of the shares are in free float.

history

In 1903 the liability association of the German iron and steel industry was founded as a mutual insurance association (HDI VaG). Initially only companies from this sector were able to insure themselves there, but in the following decades the offer was also expanded to include companies from other sectors (for more information on the history of HDI: HDI Haftpflichtverband der Deutschen Industrie ).

HDI Beteiligungs AG was founded in 1996 to separate the strategic group management and the operative insurance business. The insurance business was spun off into independent companies. To avoid confusion with the HDI brand, HDI Beteiligungs AG was renamed Talanx in 1998. Since then, the group management function has been taken over by Talanx. The word Talanx is made up of the terms talent (ancient currency unit) and phalanx (flexible battle setup).

In 2005 Talanx announced its intention to take over the operating companies of the Gerling Group for € 1.4 billion. In April 2006 the Gerling companies were integrated into Talanx, divided into a life and a property service holding. The new AmpegaGerling brand was created at the beginning of October 2006 from the investment and real estate companies of the Gerling Group and the former Ampega companies, and in 2011 it was renamed Talanx Asset Management GmbH . It primarily provides services for in-house property and asset management and also sells funds to private and institutional investors.

Talanx planned an IPO in several small tranches for mid-2012 . The final adjustment of the corporate structure to customer groups as well as further acquisitions in Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe would have been a prerequisite according to statements by the CEO.

On October 2, 2012, Talanx AG successfully completed its initial public offering on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. At the same time, Talanx shares began trading on the Hanover Stock Exchange. Talanx had been listed in the MDAX since December 2012 and switched to the SDAX on September 24, 2018 .

Group structure

The Talanx brands

Talanx is a multi-brand group. At the top is Talanx, which takes on the tasks of a management and financial holding company in the Group, but is not itself active in the insurance business. The largest majority owner of Talanx AG is HDI VaG, a mutual insurance association. The operational insurance business is carried out by the group companies of the Talanx Group.

Group companies

The group has tailored its structure to four operational customer segments: the business areas industrial insurance, private and corporate insurance Germany, private and corporate international insurance, and property and life and health reinsurance. The group is also active in the area of asset management, which is anchored in the group functions segment:

Ampega : asset management for private and institutional investors
CiV Life: CiV Life operates internationally in the private and corporate insurance division within the Talanx Group
Hannover Reinsurance (reinsurance division)
HDI Haftpflichtverband der Deutschen Industrie : German insurance companies for private and corporate customers in branch and direct sales
LifeStyle Protection: LifeStyle Protection Insurance develops simple and innovative product solutions for risk insurance for lifestyle.
Neue Leben : Neue Leben is part of the Private and Corporate Insurance Germany division in the Talanx Group

PB Insurance: As a partner of Postbank , the PB Insurance brand is tailored to the needs of Postbank customers.

Posta Biztosító: Talanx cooperates with the Hungarian Post in the field of bancassurance .

Targo Insurance: There has been a long-term bank-insurance cooperation between Targobank and the Talanx Group.

TU Europe: leader in bancassurance in Poland.

Warta: This is a subsidiary of HDI International AG based in Warsaw.

Major holdings

Talanx took over Postbank's entire insurance business . In July 2007 Talanx acquired the remaining 50% of the shares in PB Lebensversicherung AG and PB Versicherung AG for EUR 550 million, thereby becoming the sole shareholder of these two companies. The shares held by Talanx in these two companies as well as in BHW Lebensversicherung and BHW Pensionskasse were transferred to ProACTIV Holding AG, which is controlled by Talanx.

In mid-March 2009, Talanx announced that it would take over an 8.4% stake in MLP's financial sales . Together with the 1.5% share built up in the months before, Talanx's stake in MLP amounts to a total of 9.9%.

In addition, the Talanx subsidiary HDI-Gerling entered the market on the Indian subcontinent. HDI-Gerling International Holding and the Indian financial company Magma Fincorp Limited signed an agreement at the end of July 2009 to set up a joint venture.

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company , Tokyo, and Talanx signed an agreement on November 4, 2010 for a long-term strategic cooperation backed by an equity investment. The primary goal of this strategic cooperation is to jointly use business opportunities in the increasingly globalized insurance markets in order to support the future growth of both companies.

HDI-Gerling Industrie Versicherung took over the Dutch property insurer Nassau Verzekering Maatschappij NV at the beginning of 2011 with retroactive effect from September 30, 2010. The company is an established niche insurer that has focused on special lines such as professional liability, D&O and crisis management in the Netherlands and beyond . End customers are medium and small companies. With around 160 employees, it achieved a premium volume of 106 million euros in 2010.

In December 2011 it was announced that Talanx had taken over the majority in the Polish TU Europa Group. Talanx AG thus expanded its Eastern European business in particular.

On January 20, 2012, Talanx announced that it had taken over the Polish insurance group TUiR Warta SA for EUR 770 million from the Belgian KBC Group . Warta is primarily active in the maritime and aviation sectors. It has around 1.5 million customers and gross premium income of around 1 billion euros. Meiji Yasuda was to take over a 30 percent stake and Talanx a 70 percent stake.

In May 2012, Talanx started industrial insurance business in Singapore and India. The group gained further internationality through the acquisition and establishment of numerous foreign companies, such as the acquisition of the Turkish insurer Ihlas Sigorta AS in 2006. In the following years, companies in countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil and Chile were taken over.

Business figures for the group

**Key figures of Talanx AG** (according to IFRS )
year	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Gross written premiums (billion euros)	19.4	19.1	19.0	20.9	22.9	23.7	26.7	28.2	29.0	31.8	31.1	33.1	34.9	39.5
Net written premiums (billion euros)	15.0	14.9	14.9	17.3	18.8	19.5	22.0	23.1	23.8	25.9	25.7	27.4	29.6	33.0
Operating result (EBIT) (million euros)	1,286	1,462	618	1,497	1,032	1,238	1,748	1,784	1,892	2,182	2,300	1,807	2,032	2,430
Investments (billion euros)	57.8	61.6	62.2	76.4	83.4	87.5	98.9	101.0	112.9	115.6	118.9	118.7	122.9	134.1
Investment result (million euros)	2,516	2,702	1,610	2,658	3.224	3,262	3,795	3,795	4.144	3,933	4.023	4,447	3,767	4,323
Return on equity after taxes (%)	11.7	13.1	5.1	11.8	4.5	10.0	10.6	10.6	10.2	9.0	10.4	7.5	8.0	9.8
Employees as of December 31 (in capacities)	16,576	15,996	16,541	16,921	16,874	17,061	20,887	20.004	19,819	20,334	20,039	20,419	20,780	21,516

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Annual Report 2019. In: talanx.com. Retrieved April 27, 2020 .

↑ Largest insurance companies in Germany 2015 | Statista. In: Statista. Retrieved October 26, 2016 .

↑ Fundación MAPFRE: 2018 RANKING OF THE LARGEST EUROPEAN INSURANCE GROUPS. In: www.fundacionmapfre.org. Retrieved December 11, 2019 .

↑ Talanx Group according to homepage. August 3, 2017. Retrieved August 3, 2017 .

↑ Rüdiger Schoss u. Ulrike duration: INTERVIEW / Talanx does not want to go public until the group is restructured. Dow Jones Newswire, March 4, 2010, accessed October 8, 2012 .

↑ Changes in the indices ( English , PDF) Deutsche Börse . September 5, 2018. Archived from the original on September 6, 2018. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 5, 2018. @1@ 2

↑ The business areas. In: talanx.com. Retrieved June 4, 2019 .

↑ Sebastian Jost: Talanx is buying all Postbank insurers . In: The world . July 19, 2007 ( welt.de [accessed October 8, 2012]).

↑ Herbert Fromme: New alliance: Talanx joins Swiss Life and MLP . In: Financial Times Germany . March 13, 2009 ( ftd.de ).

↑ Talanx subsidiary before market entry in the subcontinent. (pdf; 86 kB) HDI-Gerling Sach Serviceholding AG, July 28, 2009, accessed on October 8, 2012 (press release).