An investment programme, called "Fenice 190", which aims to contribute to the revitalization of the European economy from a sustainability perspective, an anti-pandemic fund aimed at creating a public-private partnership and future risk protection mechanisms, a plan to treat “Green Bonds” as an asset class in its own right to help with long-term investment retention. These are the three proposals launched by the CEO of Generali, Philippe Donnet, in an editorial published today, May 4, su Euractiv, one of the most authoritative information platforms on European affairs, on the occasion of the 190th anniversary of the birth of Generali. A significant milestone "but also an opportunity to honor our history by continuing to play an increasingly active role of corporate citizenship alongside our daily work", underlines the manager.
190 years after its birth and one year after the explosion of the pandemic, the goal of the Leo group is clear: “to be a Lifetime Partner for our customers, be they individuals, families or companies", declares Donnet, recalling that precisely to pursue this goal and to promote economic recovery, in 2020 the company launched "a 100 million euro Extraordinary International Fund to fight the pandemic". Recently Generali presented “Fenice 190”, a program that plans to invest "3,5 billion euros over five years through a series of funds aimed at infrastructure, innovation and digitization, SMEs, green living, healthcare facilities and education. We have already moved one billion euros in 2020”, explained the CEO of Generali.
However, alongside the plans aimed at promoting economic recovery, initiatives must arise aimed at ensuring that what happened in 2020 does not happen again. For this reason, it is necessary to focus on pandemic coverage. “The lockdown and stringent containment measures imposed by governments to combat Covid-19 have forced many small and medium-sized businesses to shut down their operations and caused widespread cancellation of events and travel. This has led to considerable losses, also due to the total or partial absence of insurance coverage against business interruption (the so-called "Protection Gap")", highlighted Donnet, underlining however that the pandemic risk "cannot be sustained from the private insurance and reinsurance sector alone”. Hence the proposal to develop an anti-pandemic fund (Pandemic Risk Pool) multi-level, which brings together European institutions, Member States and the main insurance and reinsurance companies "to create forms of public-private partnership and future risk protection mechanisms”.
The role that the European insurance sector will play in the coming years will be fundamental. This is a sector that has 11 trillion euro of assets under management, "Generali alone exceeds 660 billion euro: we have enormous firepower", says the manager, asking other companies and institutions to co-invest in projects that aim to support the recovery, but also the fight against climate change. "To achieve this goal, it is essential to ensure the right legislative context capable of stimulating investments in long-term sustainable projects", says Donnet, presenting in parallel a proposal which, under Solvency II, envisages di treat “Green Bonds” as an asset class in its own right, in light of their different nature and lower risks compared to other types of bonds. The idea is to consider investments in long-term green bonds separately, with decreasing capital requirements for longer holding periods. This would discourage trading, favoring longer-term holding. Also in this case we have already shared this proposal with the European Commission, together with that relating to the Pandemic Risk Pool".
