Twitter, healthcare, transport, Bper and Sondrio. All the latest Cimbrian news from Unipol
Here are the most recent initiatives – some bizarre – of the Unipol group headed by Carlo Cimbri. The article by Emanuela Rossi
The activity of Carlo Cimbri , dynamic president of Unipol, the leading company in the Italian motor liability market, and of its subsidiary UnipolSai, continues at full speed. The manager from Cagliari, who joined the group over 30 years ago, makes no secret of wanting to increase turnover also thanks to business diversification.
BANCASSURANCE WITH BPER AND POP SONDRIO
One sector in which Cimbri has been moving with particular dexterity for years is that of bancassurance. Unipol recently renewed the bancassurance agreements with the two banks of which it is the largest shareholder, namely Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna (19.9%) and Popolare di Sondrio (9.5%). In particular, according to a note from the group, the agreement regards Arca Vita, whose three shareholders (UnipolSai with 63.39% of the share capital, Bper with 19.67%, and Sondrio with 14.84% ) extended the bancassurance agreements, pacts and rules on the circulation of the company's shares for another five years.
Unipol signed agreements to extend the partnerships with Bper and Sondrio as regards the distribution of life and non-life insurance products of Arca Vita, Arca Assicurazioni and Arca International, and regulated the distribution of UniSalute insurance products. Furthermore, starting from January 2023, the distribution agreements with Bper and Sondrio will be extended for five years "on terms substantially in line with those currently in force", as stated in a note from Unipol.
According to Il Sole 24 Ore "the confirmed axis between the parties signals the consolidation of the relationship between the Bolognese insurance giant and the two banks, in line with the announced strategic choice of the three companies – and in particular of the shareholder Unipol – to grow in the distribution of bancassurance products”. If for both banks the renewal is in fact specular – and almost taken for granted – the confirmation of the industrial alliance has different flavors depending on the reference markets. “
We are very satisfied with this partnership, now more than ten years old – commented the CEO of Popolare Sondrio, Mario Pedranzini -. The agreement reached allows us to benefit from the very important know-how contribution of Unipol, our industrial partner”. In the spring, the shareholders' meeting will have to renew part of the board and the bank's top management and certainly – the Confindustria newspaper points out – the axis with Unipol is indispensable for the current board of directors, as happened last April when another third of the board, including the president Francesco Venosta. Then Unipol saved the board – which was faltering – "allowing the Assogestioni front to be surpassed by a whisker (25.56% of the capital against 22.56%).
UNIPOL'S ENTRY INTO TWITTER
At the end of November, the president of the insurance group was the architect of another initiative, this time almost pioneering, namely that of investing in Twitter. Unipol is so far the only Italian entity – and among the few Europeans – to participate in the club deal of international investors alongside Elon Musk who acquired the social network at a cost of 44 billion dollars.
It is "a small investment operation from which we expect a return – commented Cimbri on the occasion during the presentation of the Think Tank report "Welfare, Italy", an evolution of the "Welfare, Italy" project of the Unipol group with the support of the The European House – Ambrosetti working group. It is an operation linked to the ability that the entrepreneur who leads the social platform will have to transform it into something broader and more complex, offering other services and leveraging the number of current users”. According to the manager, "it is an investment not so much made in the evaluation of the technological sector but rather in the entrepreneur and the project" which in the future could lead to "being listened to" more easily "if technological evolutions emerge that are also useful for us".
COMPETITION TO TELEPASS WITH UNIPOLMOVE
Recent innovations in the group's business also include Unipolmove, the electronic toll system – which also allows the payment of services related to mobility such as fines, car tax, parking, Ztl and refueling – created to challenge Telepass (51% of the holding of the Benettons, Atlantia, and 49% of Partners Group). Unipolmove landed on the market last April – precisely in conjunction with the announcement of a rise in tariffs by the competitor, which reached around €22 a year – free for the first six months and subsequently at a price of €1 per month.
An arrival that was also dealt with by the Competition and Market Authority after the notification by UnipolTech, the group company that developed and launched the marketing of Unipolmove. In October, the Antitrust decided to launch an investigation to understand whether Aiscat, the association of Italian toll motorway and tunnel concessionaires, and Autostrade per l'Italia, the main Italian motorway concessionaire (manages approximately 3,000 km of approximately 7,000 of the entire national network) have hindered Unipolmove's entry into the Italian electronic toll market.
"From the elements in the records – reads the Bulletin of the Authority led by Roberto Rustichelli – it seems to emerge that ASPI, through the AISCAT association, has concretely worked to maintain the closure of the national electronic toll system, which still remains the prerogative of the company historically controlled by it (Telepass), as well as to delay and hinder the full operation of new operators entering the EETS (European Electronic Toll Service, ed), subjected to discriminatory conditions with respect to Telepass”. According to Piazza Verdi "the abuse appears to have been in place since at least January 2019" or since UnipolTech "submitted a formal request for accreditation to AISCAT to carry out the electronic toll service on the Italian motorway network under concession".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/unipol-iniziative-twitter-telepass-bper-sondrio/ on Sun, 15 Jan 2023 06:51:49 +0000.