German insurance giant Allianz said yesterday it is “confident” for business this year after turning in a “strong” performance in 2015.
“Allianz steadily delivers strong results in increasingly challenging operating conditions. Our business is healthy and well-diversified,” said chief executive Oliver Baete.
“This makes us confident that we will continue to deliver strong earnings.”
Allianz notched up net profit of €6.616bn ($7.4bn) last year, an increase of 6.3% over the previous year.
Underlying or operating profit grew by 3.2% to €10.735bn on a 2.4% increase in revenues to €125.2bn.
Allianz said that both revenues and operating profit increased in its property and casualty insurance division, “despite a higher impact from natural catastrophes compared to the previous year.”
In the life and health segment, revenues were down slightly, but operating profit increased.
Finance chief Dieter Wemmer said that overall group earnings were driven primarily by a very strong fourth quarter.
“Strong performance in our insurance operations plus performance fees in asset management in the fourth quarter drove full-year operating profit close to the top of the target earnings range,” Wemmer said. Given the positive outlook, the group planned to pay a dividend of €7.30 per share for 2015, up from €6.85 for the previous year, Allianz said.
But investors appeared to have been expecting even more and Allianz were among the biggest losers on the Frankfurt stock exchange yesterday, shedding around 4.0% to hit an intraday low of €130.20 in a generally steady market.