German-headquartered insurer Allianz is to take complete ownership of its Italian subsidiary RAS as part of a corporate streamlining to enable it to become the first major company in Europe to become a 'Societas Europaea'.

Allianz plans to spend just over $7 billion to gain full ownership of Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta spA (RAS) before completely restructuring its organization to attain the new legal designation of ‘European Company’. Once the process is completed Allianz will be the largest European company to occupy the status of European Company, which will enable it to treat its entire network of owned subsidiaries as one company occupying a pan-Euro position.

To achieve its goal Allianz plans to overhaul its governance structure. The company’s relatively unique two board system will be maintained, however the supervisory board will be cut down to 12 members from the current 20 and in the future workers’ representatives, from several European countries represented by the Allianz Group, will occupy six of the seats.

Furthermore, although Michael Diekmann will continue as CEO, the management board will gain three new international members: Enric Cucchiani, head of Italian subsidiary Lloyd Adriatico, Frenchman Jean-Philippe Thierry, currently Paris head of Allianz’ AGF and American Clement Booth, chief executive of Aon Re International.

In terms of business sectors, the change will result in the company’s life and health insurance divisions merging with its property insurance department into a new holding company.