History
History of Vienna Insurance Group dates back to 1824, with the founding of the k.u.k. priv. wechselseitige Brandschaden Versicherung.
In the end of the 1980s, the company started expanding in central and eastern Europe, founding Kooperativa in Czechoslovakia.
In 1994, the company was transformed into a corporation, and 11% of the stock was introduced on the Vienna Stock Exchange, in the form of preffered shares. Those were changed into common shares in 2005, as the company increased its capital by about €900 million to finance acquisitions.
In 2006, the brand Vienna Insurance Group was introduced as a global brand. In central and eastern Europe, subsidiaries often use it next to their original name.
In 2008, a new capital increase permitted the acquisition of the insurance business of Erste Group, which turned VIG to the market leader in central and eastern Europe. Simultaneously, a long-term sales agreement was signed with Erste Group.
During the 2010 shareholder meeting, it was decided to create a 100% subsidiary for the insurance business in Austria, Wiener Städtische Versicherung AG Vienna Insurance Group.
Read more about this topic: Vienna Insurance Group
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)