User:Sorbat/SCOR

Founded in 1970 by the French Government as the State owned reinsurer for State owned insurance companies. In the 80's the company underwent a diversification program and by the end of the decade it had acquired companies in Europe, opened branches worldwide and operated through two units: SCOR Non-life and SCOR Vie. It was taken public in 1990 and remained independent through the consolidation wave that took place in the 90s in the reinsurance industry. In 1996 it acquired the US $400 million premium reinsurance portfolio of Allstate’s subsidiary Allstate Re, making it enter the top 10 global reinsurers and making it the 6th French company to be quoted on the NYSE.

After 9/11 SCOR was in deep financial trouble and a change of management occurred in late 2002. Denis Kessler was nominated as Chairman and CEO, replacing Blondeau, the CEO at the time. Under Kessler guidance, the company managed to recapitalize itself through a number of capital issues and improved its ratings. In 2006 it became the first pubblicly listed company to constitute itself as a Societas Europaea. In that year Revios, a cologne based Life reinsurer, was acquired and integrated. In 2007 another major acquisition took place: SCOR acquired Converium and gained a top position among global multiline reinsurers S&P Global Reinsurance Highlights, http://www2.standardandpoors.com/portal/site/sp/en/eu/page.topic/ratings_fs_ins/2,1,5,0,0,0,0,0,0,5,3,0,0,0,0,0.html

Now SCOR operates through SCOR Global Life, SCOR Global P&C and has also set up the investment unit, called SCOR Global Investment. Due to its wide geographical scope, SCOR has a decentralized structure revolving around six main offices (Hubs) in Paris, London, Zurich, Cologne, New York and Singapore, and 52 local offices throughout the world. It employs 1790 people globally

SCOR is rated by all the major rating agencies like many reinsurers. Ratings for reinsurance companies are of fundamental importance as they signal to potential clients their overall viability as risk bearer.

SCOR has been rated as follows see issuers website for scales:

• After the announced dividend for 2009 of EUR 1, SCOR will be included in the "EuroStoxx Select Dividend 30" index starting from March 19th http://www.info-financiere.fr/upload/CNS/2010/03/FCCNS025864_20100311.pdf

• SCOR figured as the 5th largest reinsurance group in 2008 according to S&P S&P Global Reinsurance Highlights 2009

• SCOR's CEO Denis Kessler was nominated "Industry Personality of the Year 2008" at the "Worldwide Reinsurance Awards" http://www.thereview.biz/thereview/staticResource.jsp?disp_name=TRV_review_worldwide_reinsurance_awards_winners#2008

{{Reflist}}

• SCOR [http://www.scor.com/]
• Investing Fund[http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/SCOR-SA-Company-History.html]
• Standard and Poors[http://www.standardandpoors.com/]
• A.M. Best [http://www.ambest.com/]
• Moody's [http://www.moodys.com/]
• Fitch Ratings [http://www.fitchratings.com/]