Munich Re Group Annual Report 2006 (PDF, 1.8

Munich Re Group Annual Report 2006
Report of the Supervisory Board
Dr. Hans-Jürgen Schinzler
Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Ladies and gentlemen,
In the year under review, the Supervisory Board again fulfilled
all the tasks and duties incumbent upon it by law and
under the Articles of Association.
The cooperation between the Supervisory Board and
the Board of Management was close and characterised by
a spirit of trust. The Board of Management satisfied its
reporting obligations towards the Supervisory Board in
2006 by briefing us regularly and in detail on all important
business transactions. We discussed these written and oral
reports intensively at our meetings. We were consulted
directly and without delay by the Board of Management on
all decisions of fundamental importance, and we advised it
on the management of the Company and constantly monitored
its conduct of the business. In addition, I kept in close
contact with the Board of Management, in particular the
Chairman, throughout the year under review. I regularly
discussed strategic issues and, above all, the Company’s
current business performance and risk management with
Dr. von Bomhard. The shareholder representatives and
employee representatives met him separately to prepare
important topics to be dealt with at the Supervisory Board
meetings. We also observed that the Board’s new commit-
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tee structure, introduced on 1 January 2006, was already
working well in the year under review and provided for even
greater Group management efficiency. Given the Group’s
economic situation, no inspection measures in accordance
with Section 111 para. 2 sentence 1 of the German Stock
Companies Act were required in the financial year.
Focal points of the meetings of the full Supervisory Board
Four meetings of the Supervisory Board took place in the
year under review. Apart from one meeting, where one
member of the Supervisory Board was unable to attend,
there was full attendance at all the meetings. As in the
previous year, the German Federal Financial Supervisory
Authority (BaFin) exercised its legal powers by sending
representatives to take part as guests in two of our meetings.
Focal points of the meetings of the full Supervisory
Board were the individual quarterly reports and the outlook
for the annual result 2006, on which the Board of Management
reported in depth. We gave detailed consideration
to the development of the Munich Re Group’s results
and compared them with those of its competitors. We
reviewed and discussed the Company’s strategic orientation
and talked about its further development with the
Board of Management. We dealt intensively with the
Group’s planning for 2007 and 2008, focusing especially on
the result target. The Board of Management informed us
on a regular basis about the Company’s risk situation and
profitability. We satisfied ourselves of the fact that integrated
risk management and risk governance have been
consistently refined. For example, the Board of Management
presented to us a method for modelling natural hazards,
the consequences of which we discussed at considerable
length. We received routine reports on the business
situation of Munich Re America. Likewise, we were briefed
by the Board of Management on major losses affecting the
Group. We were also provided with an insight into the
Munich Re Group’s integrated core management system
(major IT project Gloria), which was successfully implemented
in Munich in the year under review. Prior to the
2006 Annual General Meeting, we looked into the proposal
to cancel the existing authorisation for increasing the
share capital under “Authorised Capital Increase 2001”