Allianz looks to Singapore for international growth: Coste-Lepoutre

By Rebecca Delaney

May 15 - (The Insurer) - Allianz is eyeing opportunities for organic growth and M&A in the Southeast Asian market, with Singapore a particular focus for future opportunities, chief financial officer Claire-Marie Coste-Lepoutre said on Thursday.

Speaking on a media call following the German carrier's Q1 results, Coste-Lepoutre underlined that the firm's M&A strategy is driven by diversification and increasing P&C market share.

"There are typically three core focuses we have for M&A. The first one is to increase our market share, in particular in markets that we like and where on the P&C side we are not in the top three. That's definitely a focus we have, as well as creating diversification into our portfolio to capture the right profile," said Coste-Lepoutre.

"The second one is around going into markets where we see potential. In particular, Southeast Asia is definitely a focus for us. The last one is around convergence between asset management and life and health."

Coste-Lepoutre added: "We like the Singaporean market. We are also convinced we are very good contributor to the Singaporean market and there is more we can do. So that's definitely an area of interest, but we are also looking more broadly at further opportunities in the Southeast (Asian) market in general."

Discussing Allianz's international capabilities, Coste-Lepoutre outlined that the firm is also looking to contribute more meaningfully to the Indian insurance market.

In March, Allianz announced it had agreed to sell its 26% stake in its non-life and life insurance joint ventures with India’s Bajaj Finserv to the Bajaj Group for a total consideration of around 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion).

"We have been invested in the Indian market for a very long period of time. We continue to see strong potential in the Indian market, in particular to support the government initiatives towards insurance by 2047 which we want to contribute to," Coste-Lepoutre explained.

"We were not entirely happy in our setup with Bajaj, because we were limited in a minority role, and we wanted to have a stronger positioning into our activities in India."

Shareholder core net income for the first quarter of 2025 increased by 1.5% year on year to 2.6 billion euros, which Allianz said was impacted by the tax provision related to the upcoming sale of its stake. Adjusted for the one-off tax provision, shareholders’ core net income was up 5.0%.

"We are thinking of deploying, over time, part of the proceeds into the Indian market, and we will come back to you later once we can communicate in more detail around that," said Coste-Lepoutre.

In the P&C segment, Allianz posted a combined ratio of 91.8%, while total business volume increased by 7.1% year on year to 27.0 billion euros. Coste-Lepoutre said that around 5% of the top-line growth was based on price increases, with 2% attributed to business volume.

"In the quarter, clearly, the pricing and the volume effects are higher in retail, while on commercial lines, pricing momentum is slowing, as we expected," she concluded.

"Both retail and commercial are contributing very nicely to our combined ratio development, and P&C globally continues to see good productivity focus. Overall, in P&C we see strong growth and the earning of the actions we have undertaken in terms of profitability."