Each year "Institutional Investor" magazine asks analysts and portfolio managers to name top-performing CFOs in their domains. The magazine's fifth annual "Top CFOs" survey is based on the responses of more than 350 research analysts and portfolio managers at some 300 money management firms.
The ranking results were published in the magazine's July/August issue. For 2007 Helmut Perlet, Chief Financial Officer of Allianz since 1997, received the highest scores as "Best European CFO in the insurance sector". This is an improvement over the previous year's survey, when Perlet ranked second.
Helmut Perlet named Best European Insurance CFO
Helmut Perlet
"Unprecedented financial discipline"
One of the investors surveyed praised Perlet's "unprecedented financial discipline".
In response to the ranking, Perlet said, "One of the biggest changes at Allianz in recent years is that we've now got a real-time information system that allows us to analyze business development within 15 days of the close of the month." He commented further, "To achieve our target of ten percent annual growth in operating profit for the next three years, we want our divisions to function with the precision of auto industry assembly lines."
Further rankings
In another Institutional Investor "Best European CEOs" survey, which was published last June, Allianz CEO Michael Diekmann ranked second in the insurance sector, behind Henri de Castries of AXA.
Earlier this year, the Institutional Investor Research Group recognized Allianz's Oliver Schmidt as the "Best IR Officer in the European insurance sector". Allianz's Investor Relations team placed second in a related survey.