Skandia
Encyclopedia
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
company that was started in 1855. It has operations in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Skandia also operates an internet bank called Skandiabanken
Skandiabanken
Skandiabanken is an internet bank based in Sweden , owned by Skandia. It has one branch office in Stockholm and conducts the rest of its business over the internet and via telephone...
.
In 2003 the operations in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, American Skandia, was acquired by Prudential Financial
Prudential Financial
The Prudential Insurance Company of America , also known as Prudential Financial, Inc., is a Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, investment management, and other financial products and services to both retail and institutional customers throughout the...
. The CEO of American Skandia, Wade Dokken
Wade Dokken (author)
Wade Dokken is an American financial writer and businessman.Wade Dokken was raised in rural North Dakota and attended the University of North Dakota, where he studied political science and journalism. After graduating, Dokken became an account executive at Paine Webber...
partnered with Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients...
and sold the division to Prudential Financial for $1.2 billion.
Skandia is one of the world's leading independent providers of solutions for long-term savings and investments. They offer products and services that cater for various financial needs and security. Skandia pioneered the "MultiManager" approach, which has now been adopted by most life insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
providers.
Skandia's largest operation, in terms of new business and profit, is the United Kingdom which launched in 1979. Their UK headquarters
Headquarters
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
is Skandia House in Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
. Peter Mann became the current Chief Executive Officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
for the UK and Offshore Group on May 1st 2010. Mann replaced former CEO Nick Poyntz-Wright who'd been with the company for 21 years.
In 2005 South African/British financial services group Old Mutual
Old Mutual
Old Mutual plc is an international long-term savings group. Established in 1845 in South Africa, it is now a FTSE100 listed company operating in 33 countries.-History:...
launched a $6.5bn (£3.6bn) bid to acquire majority control of Skandia, which was met with resistance from some of Skandia's shareholders and directors. On February 3, 2006 Old Mutual completed its acquisition of Skandia, which was subsequently delisted from the Stockholm and London stock exchanges.
Rebranding
Skandia also decided that it would no longer be sponsoring Cowes Week
Cowes Week
Cowes Week is one of the longest-running regular regattas in the world. With 40 daily races, up to 1,000 boats, and 8,500 competitors ranging from Olympic and world class professionals to weekend sailors, it is the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world...
after 14 years, with its last year of sponsorship being 2008. The company cited other more national events to sponsor rather than a localized one. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/6474129.stm
Criticisms
Controversy surrounded Skandia in recent years, mostly due to illegal internal affairs with the subsidiary Skandia Life, and for having provided executives with subsidized apartments in StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. The involved executives are among others Lars-Eric Petersson and Ulf Spång. The Skandia trademark and reputation were tainted during this time. It was discovered in late 2003 that executives at Skandia had embezzled 13 billion Swedish kronor
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
. Subsequently, the board had to resign and in 2006. Lars-Eric Petersson was sentenced to two years in prison, however, the case was later appealed to a higher court.
On 19 December 2007, the Court of Appeal dismissed all charges against Lars-Eric Petersson.
The charges by the prosecutor proceeded from the prerequisite that the payments from Skandia’s bonus program, called Wealthbuilder, to the beneficiaries were limited to an amount of SEK 300 million during the time period 1 January 1998 – 31 December 1999. According to the prosecutor, Lars-Eric Petersson had, without the consent of the Board, removed the cap on the bonus programme by signing a document named Appendix 3, and thus causing payments of additionally approx. SEK 156 million to the beneficiaries.
On 26th March 2010, the former legal head of Skandia Germany, Michael Wolski, was prosecuted for tax fraud of the Cezanowski family (about EUR 50 million which Michael Wolski cashed in) for 2 years and 6 months jail in Darmstadt, Germany. His wife Karin Wolski, who is a high court judge, resigned on the same day. His wife is driving among others a Bugatti Veyron
Bugatti Veyron
The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 is a mid-engined grand touring car. The Super Sport version is the fastest road-legal production car in the world, with a top speed of . The original version has a top speed of...
, which was bought from the "stolen" money.
According to the Court of Appeal, the prosecutor was not able to prove that the limitation for Wealthbuilder was still in force when Lars-Eric Petersson signed Appendix 3 in December 2000. The charges were therefore dismissed. (Translation of the press release from the Svea Court of Appeal)
External links
- Skandia - Official site
- Skandia UK - UK site
- Skandia Sweden - Sweden site
- Skandia Finland - Finland site
- Skandia Norway - Norwegian site
- Skandia Poland - Polish site
- Skandia Italy - Italy site