With the industrial plan that will be presented on 21 November in Milan, Generali aims to strengthen its leadership in Europe, where "there is still room for growth and development". This was stated by the CEO of the Lion, Philippe Donnet, in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore in the 20th Annual Assicurazioni. “International diversification is very important and we must strengthen it – he added – With the strategic plan we have a very targeted strategy to support both organic and non-organic growth: we have also decided to develop a strong presence in Asia and in two countries in America Latina which are Argentina and Brazil”. Words that do not exclude targeted acquisitions of the Trieste company.
Generali's plan, explained Donnet again, “will be a plan dedicated to growth, expansion and development but also to strengthening the capital situation, innovation and accelerating digital transformation. We have reached the end of a phase of six years of restructuring, three years of financial restructuring and three years of industrial transformation. Today we are in a very different situation, we have freed up a lot of capital, we have a significant level of cash, we need to invest to develop our group and we are ready to do so. We are now facing a new phase in our history which will necessarily have to be very ambitious”.
As for the possible evolution of the political-economic situation in Italy, Donnet assured that he did not fear "any type of capital flight" because Generali is able "together with the whole sector, to offer the right products to manage Italian savings well . I am also convinced and confident that after this period of crisis, in the medium term, thanks to the strength of its institutions, everything will return to a more reassuring context".
Finally, a passage on Solvency 2: “The insurance world has absolutely nothing to do with banks: every time a regulation that comes from the banking sector is imported into the sector, it is wrong. Solvency 2 has proved to be a good regulation, it is satisfactory because it gives clarity on the capital solidity of the companies. But I would say that we also need stability. A regulation of this importance cannot change every year, we are ready to manage evolutions but not a short-term revolution. Over-regulation is not good for the industry. We have not reached this excess and we must not reach it because we compete on the world market and outside Europe there is no Solvency II and nobody wants it. We must not score an own goal by putting too much pressure on European companies with excessively binding regulation."
