Heading for an Exit Strategy

摘要

It's an axiom of investing that selling is half the game. Figuring out what to buy and when is critical, of course, but knowing when to sell can be equally important -and often more fraught. This is a lesson that many institutions, having expanded wildly by acquisition during the bull market, may have to learn the hard way as the credit crisis gives way to a great deleveraging. Consider Michael Diekmann. In five years at the helm of Germany's Allianz, the CEO has transformed the company's core insurance business, Europe's largest, by restoring discipline to its underwriting practices, consolidat- ing back offices and moving to a single brand in most of the 70 countries in which the group operates. But as Senior Editor Jo Wrighton reports in this month's cover story, "Banking on Insurance," beginning on page 34, Allianz continues to trade at a substantial discount to peers like France's AXA because of the poor performance of its Dresd-ner Bank subsidiary.