Investor relations activities stepped up in response to greater need for information

Given the increasingly competitive market environment in non-life reinsurance Hannover Re noted a greater need for information on the part of investors, especially from the early summer of 2013 onwards. Our travel activities undertaken in response to this demand took us to altogether 14 capital market conferences (previous year: 14) and 18 roadshows (15). Our concentration was once again on the financial centres of Frankfurt and London, which we visited at least once a quarter. Other destinations included Brussels, Geneva, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Lugano, Milan, Paris, Stockholm and Zurich. North America was another special focus of our travels in 2013, which gave us an opportunity to meet interested investors not only in New York and Boston but also in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montreal and Toronto. Not only that, we profiled ourselves for the first time to Asian investors at a capital market conference in Hong Kong.

Our 16th Investors’ Day was held on 23 October 2013 in Frankfurt/Main. Around 35 analysts and institutional investors took up our invitation to engage in an intensive exchange of views with the Executive Board on the opportunities and risks offered by non-life reinsurance in the current market climate. The discussions focused on, among other things, the inflow of alternative capital into the reinsurance market for US natural catastrophe risks and the resulting intensification of competitive pressure as well as the medium-term strategic challenges facing the company in light of the protracted low interest rate environment.

In addition, in the year just ended we again provided information about our achievements as a responsible enterprise in the form of a stand-alone sustainability report drawn up in accordance with the internationally recognised reporting standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Based on this structured reporting format, which was presented for the second year in succession, Hannover Re’s sustainability performance was also assessed on a rotating basis at the beginning of the year by the rating agency oekom research. Not only was our fulfilment of the minimum industry-specific requirements confirmed, we were also included in the oekom research Prime Standard. From the standpoint of its sustainability initiatives, Hannover Re is thus ranked as one of the leading companies in the insurance sector.