QBE announces new direction and team changes
Big general insurer QBE has announced a change in strategic direction along with key senior management changes at the same time as announcing an 8 per cent improvement in full-year net profit after tax to US$761 million.
The company used its results announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) to announce a "new strategic focus" via which it said it intended to evolve from a regionally-focused multinational business to "fully integrated global insurer".
Commenting on the new focus, QBE chief executive John Neal said the company had been hugely successful over the last 15 years, but as the world changed the QBE needed to evolve to continue to meet or exceed key stakeholder expectations.
He said the company was implementing a new program to achieve economies of scope and scale through the creation of dedicated centres of excellence, to manage functions and processes which are currently replicated across the group and to improve productivity.
Neal said the initiative was expected to generate annual run-rate expense savings of at least US$250 million a year by the end of 2015.
However he also signaled that the company's broader transformation would require significant investment — something he would provide further detail on later this year.
Among the senior management changes announced by QBE were that long-serving chief financial officer Neil Drabsch would be succeeded by the current chief executive of QBE's European operations Steven Burns, while Burns would be succeeded in the European role by his deputy Richard Pryce.
At the same time Neal announced that the company's North American CEO John Rumpler would be leaving the organisation and would be replaced by David Duclos, while David Fried would be joining the company from HSBC Holdings as CEO of QBE's Asia Pacific Operations.
AUTHOR
Staff Writer
Recommended for you
In this episode of Relative Return, host Laura Dew speaks with Andrew Mitchell, director and senior portfolio manager at Ophir Asset Management, about why he loves working in fund management and the lessons he’s learnt in a decade of running a firm.
In this episode of Relative Return, host Laura Dew speaks with Blackwattle Investment Partners managing director and chief investment officer, Michael Skinner, about setting up an asset manager and what he looks for in an investment team.
In this special episode of Relative Return, Momentum Media’s Phil Tarrant and Jordan Coleman discuss the publishing house’s expansion into greater coverage of the wealth management space.
In this episode of Relative Return, host Maja Garaca Djurdjevic speaks with Riley James, founder and chief executive of fintech SuperAPI, about creating a superannuation ecosystem and potential changes from the Quality of Advice Review.
