Krungthai-AXA bancassurance sales surge

Krungthai-AXA Life Insurance, the French-Thai joint venture, is looking to balance its channels after bank sales surged over the past six years.

“We plan to grow all three channels _ agency, bank and alternative _ but the ratio should be 45:45:10 of new sales, respectively,” said chief executive Mike Plaxton.

“We don’t want to rely solely on any particular channel.”

Krungthai-AXA has witnessed a significant expansion in bancassurance over the last six years.

The number of licensed brokers at Krung Thai Bank, its partner, has doubled from 4,400 to nearly 9,000 in this period.

Last year, bancassurance accounted for half or 3.57 billion baht of the company’s total annual premium equivalent (APE).

APE is defined as the first-year premium plus 10% of the single premium rate.

Bancassurance’s contribution surged from only 361 million baht in 2006.

“Bancassurance has made great progress,” said Roger Deacon, the chief distribution officer.

The agency channel contributed 45% of total APE or 3.18 billion baht, up from 1.19 billion in 2006.

The alternative channel, mainly group plans sold to corporations, generated 334 million baht of APE last year, an increase from 46 million recorded in 2006.

Founded in 1997, Krungthai-AXA reported total written premiums of 21 billion baht as of Dec 31.

The company’s invested assets surged to 52.4 billion baht at year-end from only 6.1 billion in 2006.

Krungthai-AXA reported accumulated profits of 3.6 billion baht last year against a 1-billion-baht accumulated loss five years ago.

Tags: Sales Surge, Surge

Thursday, March 8th, 2012 Financial News No Comments

Slower gains in worker output could lead to hiring

WASHINGTON – U.S. companies will have to keep hiring steadily to meet their customers’ rising demand. That’s the message that emerged Wednesday from a report that employers are finding it harder to squeeze more output from their existing staff.

Worker productivity rose at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the October-December quarter, the Labor Department said. While that’s a slight upward revision from last month’s preliminary estimate, it’s half the pace from the July-September quarter.

Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, grew last year at the slowest pace in nearly a quarter of a century.

A slowdown is bad for corporate profits. But it can be a good sign for future hiring.

Read all post…

Tags: Hiring

Sunday, March 4th, 2012 Small Business No Comments

Vavi, Malema share spotlight as Cosatu march kicks off

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and ANC Youth League president Julius Malema have joined the union federation’s march in Jo’burg against e-tolling and labour brokers, riding high on protesters’ shoulders at the head of the procession.

The flagship Johannesburg march is taking in much of the CBD and marchers are expected to cover around 10km on foot. In Cape Town and Durban, the union federation’s planned marches are expected to be relatively small and cover only small distances. Read all post…

Tags: March, March Kicks

Sunday, March 4th, 2012 Business Articles No Comments

Prosecution’s witnesses paint new picture of flipping trial defendants

But testimony by government witnesses over the past few days has depicted Streinz and Cavallo as detail-oriented people who were far more cognizant of what was going on around them than their attorneys let on.

Streinz’s former boss at FCCI Insurance Group described Streinz as a meticulous insurance fraud investigator.

He “was as detailed a person as I have ever worked with in the fraud unit,” said Joseph A. Keene, FCCI’s executive vice president in charge of claims.

Cavallo’s father — George Bobka Sr. — said his methodical middle son was the one who kept the books for the real estate venture Cavallo co-managed with his younger brother, Rich Bobka.

“George was more practical than Richard,” George Bobka said during his testimony on Monday.

Read all post…

Tags: Prosecutions Witnesses, Witnesses

Sunday, February 26th, 2012 Business Articles No Comments

Twitter sells your feed to Big Data

Twitter users are about to become major marketing fodder, as two research companies get set to release information to clients who will pay for the privilege of mining the data.

Boulder, Colorado-based Gnip Inc. and DataSift Inc., based in the U.K. and San Francisco, are licensed by Twitter to analyze archived tweets and basic information about users, like geographic location. DataSift announced this week that it will release Twitter data in packages that will encompass the last two years of activity for its customers to mine, while Gnip can go back only 30 days.

“Harvesting what someone said a year or more ago is game-changing,” said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego. As

Read all post…

Tags: Data

Sunday, February 26th, 2012 Financial News No Comments

Cotton prices down, but clothing costs won’t be

“I don’t think anybody is looking in a meaningful way to be lowering the prices,” Carter’s chairman and CEO Michael Casey said in a company conference call.

The children’s clothing company was able to pass on some of the cost increases to shoppers, but the difficult economy kept them from raising prices more, Casey said. Still, the price of clothes won’t fluctuate down, as Carter’s expects fuel prices and the cost to employ workers to continue to rise. It also hopes to improve the amount of money it makes on each article of clothing sold.

Carter’s sales grew 21 percent in 2011 and baby clothing and playwear orders for next fall are strong. Girls’ playwear, which had struggled, is improving, but sleepwear continues to be down.

Carter’s online sales grew to more than $70 million, far greater than the company expected.

Read all post…

Tags: Clothing, Clothing Costs

Saturday, February 25th, 2012 Small Business No Comments