Credit Suisse Restructures Winterthur Group Board Lineup

Credit Suisse Group announced changes to the corporate governance structure of its subsidiary Winterthur Group, “in line with the repositioning of the insurance business within the company.”

In a further step towards a spin-off, The Boards of Directors of Winterthur Swiss Insurance Company and Winterthur Life have been newly elected and will be chaired by Oswald J. Grübel, CEO of Credit Suisse Group, effective immediately.

“Following the announcement by Credit Suisse Group that it would reposition Winterthur as a financial investment and prepare it for a capital market flotation, the Group has now decided to adapt the corporate governance structure of Winterthur to reflect this change of parameters,” said the announcement.

It also noted that the “composition of the Boards of Directors of the two Winterthur entities was previously the same as that of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse Group. The decision to establish separate Boards of Directors will enhance supervision at Winterthur Group and will enable specific insurance issues to be monitored more closely. The management structure of Winterthur Group will remain unchanged.”

The Board of Directors, which comprises eight members, will be chaired by Grübel. Anton van Rossum, the former CEO of Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch financial services banking and insurance group, has been appointed vice-chairman. He also serves as chairman of the Risk Committee and member of the Compensation Committee of “Winterthur” Swiss Insurance Company and Winterthur Life, and as a Member of the Board and the Compensation Committee of Credit Suisse Group. Van Rossum worked for 28 years with McKinsey and Company, where he led a number of top management consulting assignments with a focus on the banking and insurance sectors.

The other directors are: Renato Fassbind, Tobias Guldimann, Ulrich Körner, Jean Lanier, Urs Rohner and Peter F. Weibel.