Zurich Insurance Group will investigate whether excessive pressure was put on the company’s finance chief ahead of his apparent suicide, the company’s acting chairman said yesterday.
Europe’s third-largest insurer has been thrown into disarray by the death of Pierre Wauthier on Monday and the subsequent resignation of its chairman, former Deutsche Bank boss Josef Ackermann, three days later.
Ackermann said Wauthier’s family believed he shared some responsibility for his death. Ackermann, who joined the company last year, denied the allegation.
Photo: Bloomberg
Zurich’s acting chairman confirmed in a conference call with investors and analysts that Wauthier, a 17-year veteran of the insurer, had left a suicide note in which he talked about Ackermann.
“We are aware of its content, and it’s correct that it’s related to the relationship between Pierre Wauthier and Joe Ackermann,” Tom de Swaan said.
“The board sees it as its prime responsibility to look into the question as to whether there was undue pressure placed on our CFO,” he said.
De Swaan said he was not aware of any inappropriate behavior among Zurich’s board members.
“The board is well aware of the need to strengthen the management team, and I consider this to be our top priority,” he said. “Our focus is on ensuring the continued stability of the company.”
Zurich Insurance has suffered considerable flux among its ranks in recent years with the departure of its life insurance chief, Kevin Hogan, two weeks ago to join AIG as its head of consumer insurance.
Former general insurance head Mario Greco left a year ago to head Italian insurer Generali.
Zurich Insurance reported a 17 percent slide in net profit in the first half of the year due to low interest rates and large payouts on natural disasters. Two weeks ago it said it would miss certain performance targets.
The company’s shares have fallen nearly 11 percent in the past six months compared with a near 10 percent increase in the European insurance index.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS