Allianz

Allianz (ˈæliənts , aˈli̯ants) is a German multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management. The company is one of the world's largest insurers and financial services groups. It is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. Its asset management division, which consists of PIMCO, Allianz Global Investors and Allianz Real Estate, has €2,432 billion of assets under management (AuM), of which €1,775 billion are third-party assets (Q1 2021). Allianz sold Dresdner Bank to Commerzbank in November 2008. Allianz AG was founded in Berlin on 5 February 1890 by the then-director of the Munich Reinsurance Company Carl von Thieme (a native of Erfurt, whose father was the director of the insurance company Thuringia) and Wilhelm von Finck (co-owner of the Merck Finck & Co. Bank). The joint company was listed in Berlin's trade register under the name Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft. The first Allianz products were marine and accident policies that were first sold only in Germany. However, in 1893, Allianz opened the first international branch office in London. It distributed marine insurance coverage to German clientele looking for coverage abroad. In 1900, the company became the first insurer to obtain a license to distribute corporate policies. In 1904, Paul Von Naher took over the sole leadership of the company, as it moved into the US and other markets. Markets entered by 1914 included the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, France, the Scandinavian countries and the Baltic States, and Allianz had become the largest maritime insurer in Germany. The company suffered an early disaster in expansion, when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake caused the company to sustain 300,000 marks in losses. In 1905 the company acquired "Fides Insurance Company", a firm that had innovated the first form of home invasion insurance. Other places it would expand into during the 1910s and 1920s included Palestine, Cyprus, Iraq, China, the Dutch Indies (nowadays Indonesia), Ceylon (nowadays Sri Lanka), and Siam (nowadays Thailand).