保险费

David D'Alessandro knew little about insurance when he joined John Hancock's senior management, but his brash, fresh outlook helped carry the company through an IPO.

Now, as CEO, he faces tough questions about strategy and survival.

Some meals you just don't forget.

Over a lunch in 1986, James Morton, chairman of what was then John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., popped a shocking question to one of his vice presidents, David D'Alessandro: Would he be interested in running Hancock's ailing group health business? D'Alessandro was just 34. He had been with the Boston institution all of two years and was not exactly experienced in running an insurance unit. He was, of all things, head of the public relations department. "I'm glad to do this," said D'Alessandro. "Just tell me, what is the group business, anyway?"

简短，D'Alessandro在汉袋里吃了每个人的午餐，爬上了管理阶梯。到1991年，他正在运营零售业，汉考克最大。这可能是他达到了现在John Hancock金融服务的顶级梯级。49岁的公司历史上最年轻的首席执行官D'Alessandro，似乎在他前面拥有漫长而美丽的未来。但他发现自己在一个迅速巩固的行业中，越来越多地由大于约翰汉考克的公司统治 - 以及更加多样化。D'Alessandro面临更多的问题和压力，而不是他的任何前任公司的战略和方向。这是这笔138岁的保险公司的青睐，精算表并没有运行。

然而，D'Alessandro在之前面临的赔率长。他的上司对某人赌博“与保险主管的正常形象不同，”斯蒂芬布朗说，斯蒂芬布朗，他在1992年之前作为首席执行官和成功的莫顿，担任主席。随着D'Alessandro的赌注为D'Alessandro获得了布朗和莫顿的鼓励，尽管缺乏财务，精算和管理经验，但仍然呈现出挑战。

From the start, he questioned conventional wisdom. Within months of digging into the nitty-gritty of the group health business, for example, he recommended that it be sold; he argued that it was too small and not profitable enough. Moving at the slow speed typical of mutual insurance companies, Hancock took a couple of years to pull the trigger on the sale. But that decision started a trend, new to the conservative mutual sector, of reassessing business lines, selling off those deemed unprofitable or uncompetitive and buying others to fill in the gaps.

Such deal making, however, may not insure John Hancock's survival. With $85 billion in assets, it ranks a distant ninth in the insurance industry even as it considers itself to be a peer of financial services giants like American International Group, Bank of America, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Prudential Insurance Co. of America. All have hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and workforces that far outnumber Hancock's 5,800 employees. Most appear far more capable than Hancock of making bold merger moves that will make them even more imposing.

但在金融业的动荡中，D'Alessandro有一些人寿保险政策。1月份汉考克首次公开发行库存，通过称为恶作剧的过程筹集了17亿美元。IPO规定包括与马萨诸塞州联盟的一份公约，以防2002年底的任何未经请求的收购Hancock。

Realistic about Hancock's long-term prospects, D'Alessandro says, "I think it's inevitable that companies like ours will probably merge or be acquired at some point." It could even happen before 2003, if both the Hancock board and Massachusetts regulators approve. But with the freedom not to give in just yet, D'Alessandro aims at the very least to drive up Hancock's stock price on the merits of performance, making it hard for an acquirer to swallow. "The biggest risk is that you lose control of the company to a bigger entity because you haven't performed," he says.

David D'Alessandro竟然是棕色和莫顿希望在汉考克和保守主义上摆动松动的那种脱模性格。他的59楼办公室与他个人纪念品集合的谈话作品。三股亚伯拉罕林肯的头发用滚石的罗恩木头拥有的红色电吉他，由穆罕默德阿里和玛丽莲梦露属的银色紧凑型，拳击树干。D'Alessandro的100万美元年薪让他沉迷于他对历史和流行文化的热情。亚慱体育app怎么下载Sports-Mad以经营宗旨，他上个月在悉尼奥运会上度过了一顿奥运会，留下了四年，5500万美元的企业赞助，在他看来，在公众的眼中保持John Hancock的名字。

D'Alessandro也是一种自由精神的开放，可供选择，也是一种精神焕发的形象策略家。他赢得了外部观察员的钦佩，同时努力改变他公司的内部文化。亚慱体育app怎么下载Salomon Smith Barney分析师Colin Devine致电他“街头聪明”并增加，“我觉得大卫是一位钱家。他有很大的本能。”分析师赞美汉考克的管理质量 - 在很大程度上反映了对那些对他报告的所有业务线的实践的信仰。（该公司没有首席运营官。）Douglas Elliott，Sandler O'Neill＆Partners的合并专家，“我看着John Hancock，看到一个很好的清洁特许经营，拥有伟大的品牌名称。”

达利山德罗和汉考克质疑heading revolve around the critical yardstick of market capitalization, and the company went through a lot to get one. Its demutualization, the tenth by a U.S. insurer, took 18 months to complete. It came more than 13 years after Unum Corp. did the first one and ranked third in size behind those of Equitable Cos. (now AXA Financial) in 1992 and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in April. Three million Hancock policyholders became shareholders. After paying the $110 million cost of demutualization and issuing cash to customers who chose not to take shares, Hancock at long last has currency - more than $8 billion in market cap as of late September - to pursue acquisitions. Mutuals were never prevented from making deals. Hancock had done a few, and MetLife paid $1.2 billion for GenAmerica Corp. before its IPO. But the high price MetLife paid for GenAmerica was an exception; shareholder ownership confers greater flexibility to do more deals, and bigger ones. A mutual that must pay cash can take on too much leverage, jeopardizing its all-important claims-paying and credit ratings.

汉考克的市场估值在9月上半年上涨约10％，符合其他金融股，被认为是合并候选人。“大小将是重要的，”D'Alessandro说，因为他达到了他的交易潜力。

但是，有80亿战争胸部可能堆积在，比如花旗集团的2500亿美元或2000亿美元的AIG？刷掉那些比较，D'Alessandro侧重于投资者强加的“公共市场纪律”。他确信，如果汉考克保持相互，“我们将在五或六年内取消竞争。”

他补充说：“我感到非常强烈，我也认为这里的管理团队强烈地感受到了，我们正在表演以及我们作为共同公司。我们开始在能够有足够的压力方面开始击中帽子在内部组织。相互公司的基本上由高管推动，他在60岁时被安全地退役。这是他们的心态。因此，您备份了对如何安全地运行公司的所有决定。你不能那样吸引伟大的人才。您不会通过作为私人俱乐部运行它作为公司的标记。“

他根据服务长度发放员工 - 200所直达初中经理等级和更多的管理者，他抓住了员工的注意力。（D'Alessandro和其他五个顶级高管在2001年2月1日之后才有资格获得备选条件;目前尚未宣布任何计划。）每个汉考克大楼的每层楼的信息亭都展示了股价，每小时更新四次。首席财务官Thomas Moloney表示，关于股东问责制的信息大声且清晰：“管理者不能只做五件事，并希望其中一个是有效的。他们必须做出选择，他们在勾选结果。“

他们还熟悉D'Alessandro在股权回报率为15％的“拉伸目标”，每股收益的15％，内部为“15-BY-15”。许多人穿着袖扣和翻领引脚与数字一起融合。Moloney说，“我们现在经历了很多项目和资本分配会议，并说，'好的，这对15到15次会议做了什么？”

Hancock is progressing but is far from a consistent 15-by-15. Net operating income rose a healthy 22 percent last year, to $613 million, and operating ROE improved to 13.2 percent, from 11.5 percent in 1998. The ROE rose to 16.7 percent in the first quarter of this year before slipping to 14.1 percent in the second. Net income in the second quarter increased 14 percent from a year earlier, to 73 cents a share, but when excluding extraordinary items such as investment gains and a tax credit, the gain was only one cent (2 percent), to 58 cents. At $1.94 billion, total revenues were off 8 percent - premiums and net investment income slumped, offsetting healthy gains in retail product sales, including long-term-care insurance (41 percent) and individual variable life (20 percent).

"I want people to remain conscious that they can't go backwards - they can't run an 8 percent business," D'Alessandro says. "The question is, do you want to piddle along as a mutual company, dragging as many people as you can to 60 safely, or do you want to actually accomplish something in your life?"

D'ALESSANDRO GREW UP IN EAST UTICA, NEW York, a close-knit Italian-American community where his father ran the family grocery store by day and taught business law at a local community college in the evenings. After graduating from Utica College in 1972 with a degree in journalism and public relations, D'Alessandro joined the Daniel J. Edelman PR agency in New York as an account supervisor. Two years later he took a senior communications position at Commercial Credit Co. in Baltimore, which later became a linchpin of the Travelers Group empire that would evolve into Citigroup.

达利山德罗接受了公共关系的职位Hancock in 1984 and made an immediate impression. "He dressed sharper. He was outspoken. He was very creative," says chairman Brown, who was then president-elect. When D'Alessandro took over the group health and life unit in 1987, he held on to his PR duties. "We wanted to have the business shaken up and thought it would be a good test for David," Brown explains.

达利山德罗的影响哈rd-nosed recommendation to drop the first insurance business that he headed, Brown and the Hancock board approved a series of transactions during the next decade that significantly altered and tightened the business mix. Gone are property/casualty and group medical, which have caused major headaches for many insurers in recent years, as well as the health maintenance organization and individual disability lines. Hancock also sold an equity real estate business and the Tucker Anthony regional brokerage.

在1999年的核心或增长市场中扩大了它的核心或增长市场，收购了人身保险公司Aetna Canada和Essex公司，并向银行的共同资金分销商。3月份，它增加了美国金融服务巨头Fortis集团的美国个人长期护理业务。

But D'Alessandro finally snared the CEO's job through his aggressive management of the retail group, as well as his marketing acumen.

Between 1991 and 1998, the years D'Alessandro headed the retail group, its net income nearly tripled, to $338 million from $117 million. Like many mutuals, Hancock was selling most of its life and annuity products through career agents. D'Alessandro made what was at the time a dramatic departure for a mutual company, turning the agents into independent financial planners, renaming the group Signator and letting it sell other companies' products as well as Hancock's. He also added other distributors, including banks and independent broker-dealers.

D'Alessandro's marketing strategies were just as bold - and more visible to the consumers, investors and other constituencies that he is trying to impress through the power of the Hancock name. For him, Hancock's corporate logo, the iconic signature from the Declaration of Independence, is only a start. Much of the additional brand recognition he seeks comes from linking Hancock with sports, and D'Alessandro is unquestionably a leader in this league.

在1985年仍然运行PR的同时，D'Alessandro被誉为Boston Marathon的金融救世主，因为汉考克在公司赞助中介入。他在20世纪80年代后期驾驭体育营销，当保险公司成为第一家公司名称的公司之一，在季后赛大学橄榄球比赛中。太阳碗是重新挑选了约翰汉克碗。

College football and television could not satisfy D'Alessandro's ambitions. Hancock bought perhaps the most valuable corporate sponsorship in the sports world in 1993, joining Coca-Cola Co., IBM Corp., McDonald's Corp., Visa International and a few others in an elite circle of companies known as TOP - the Olympic Partners. And D'Alessandro has not been a silent partner. When a bribery scandal cast a harsh light on the International Olympic Committee's site-selection process, D'Alessandro raised more of a ruckus than any other sponsor and threatened to pull out unless significant reforms were made. That prompted a war of words in the press with IOC defender Dick Ebersol, the president of NBC Sports. D'Alessandro stood his ground and was instrumental in winning an ethics clause that allows sponsors to withdraw their support if the IOC does something that sullies their reputations.

The battle won Hancock loads of publicity and put D'Alessandro squarely on the side of truth, justice and the American way. Hancock recently reupped as a TOP sponsor through 2004, committing an estimated $65 million. Last month New York Times columnist George Vecsey touted D'Alessandro as a candidate to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as IOC president.

作为首席执行官，D'Alessandro在珩磨汉考克的策略中一直是一定思想的。该公司为零售和机构客户提供服务，并从这些产品中赚取大部分资金，作为投资的人寿保险，长期护理报道，年金，共同基金，保证投资合同和投资咨询服务。简化的投资组合非常符合D'Alessandro的汉臣的愿景，作为通过多种渠道分发的金融产品的专业制造商，包括代理商，银行和互联网。“我们制作产品，我们提供服务，我们知道如何支持我们的品牌，”他说。

最近，汉考克使用互联网技术将其3,000名签署者代表与新闻和信息网络系。八月，它宣布向John Hancock退休服务客户提供DLJDirect的在线经纪服务。汉考克已经在网上销售人寿保险，在未来几个月内计划，以增加简化的长期护理，可变寿命和年金计划。D'Alessandro是“在行业中大多数其他CEO之后的方式，大多数人仍在努力拼写互联网，”Salomon Smith Barney德莱恩说。

In the financial market Olympics, D'Alessandro so far has a winning record - at least, against other insurers that have demutualized. Most of these stocks open at discounts to book value and slowly appreciate over time. Mony Group, which converted in 1998, started trading at 62.7 percent of book value. As of early September it was still trading at only 94 percent of book. MetLife, which raised $2.9 billion in its IPO this year, started at 70 percent of book value and climbed to 132 percent by mid-August. The problem with most newly converted mutuals is substandard ROEs, attributable to high costs and the fact that they carry on their books big blocks of low-yielding whole life policies. The irony is that most companies demutualize in order to do deals yet emerge from IPOs with limited buying power.

Hancock is the only one of these whose initial offering price exceeded book value - by 3 percent, to be exact, at $17 a share. The shares have been holding steady above $20, toward the high end of a trading range of roughly $14 to $28. Hancock apparently benefited by divesting the unwanted businesses and lopping costs well before it demutualized. "We were trying to run the company like a stock company as much as possible," says Brown. "We didn't have as far to go as some of the other mutuals did."

他所有的精力,达利山德罗cautio移动usly. He prefers to be in businesses that are predictable and safe, yet even in his current comfort zone, hazards abound. Getting out of the disability market was an easy call, he says, because "any insurance business where it's in the best interests of the consumer to abuse a claim is a business I don't want to be in." He adds that life insurance, by contrast, "is the mother's milk of this company. While it's not growing dramatically as an industry, we continue to grow aggressively by stealing market share. The predictability in this business is that people die when they're supposed to and aren't around to complain afterwards. You're in a business where it's not in the best interests of the person paying the policy to actually trigger the claim."

到六月汉考克，从1996年的1.9％提高了美国美国的美国。然而，这里的缺点是一个120亿美元的传统整个生活政策，具有微薄的6％的獐鹿。它不易出售;最好的D'Alessandro可以做的是增加其他企业的回报。“传统街区是我们收入的20％，”他说。“如果你拿出来，我们现在就达到了15％的Roe。”

D'Alessandro also faces a declining mutual fund business. Assets under management, $32 billion at midyear, have been eroding. The business lacks sufficient scale, and Hancock will find it hard to stand out in a crowded field. "There are a whole lot more complexes out there than the world needs," says Arthur Fliegelman, a credit analyst at Moody's Investors Service. Though an acquisition might be the quickest way for Hancock to bulk up, D'Alessandro seems to be turned off by the challenges of integrating an independent advisory firm into Hancock's institutional culture.

Salomon Smith Barney's Devine表示，Hancock需要在其变量年金运行中建立规模，该操作在去年的行业销售中排名第39。购买批发商Essex公司的帮助 - 汉考克的市场份额从1996年的0.9％高达1.2％ - as应该卖出与IPO Inddicate成员谈判的John Hancock Nanuities的协议。Devine说汉考克应该考虑收购。

即使D'Alessandro做出了正确的动作，汉考克将作为独立公司生存吗？Devine涵盖16个生活公司，并推测所有除一等的一元生物，其法定收购保护延续至2005年 - 将在三年内获得。Sandler O'Neill的Elliott还预计兼并的折扣，虽然速度较慢。资产和市场上限可能较少的问题，而不是汉考克这样的公司投资的能力，它需要跟上世界上的花旗集团。虽然汉袋在这些领域，汉克克斯的品牌和营销也可能是昂贵的。该公司是否应该被收购，其名称可能很好。

Like its larger peers, Hancock enjoys more flexibility thanks to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which removed the legal barriers among commercial banking, investment banking and insurance. But D'Alessandro expresses no desire to acquire a bank or to return to securities brokerage, which Hancock exited with the sale of Tucker Anthony in 1996.

D'Alessandro's positioning might be called "deal neutral." Although he has a team scouting for acquisitions, "there is nothing in Hancock's financial plans that ever requires an acquisition to attain our growth," he says. "I think it's a dangerous way to run a company. When a company is being run on the basis that, 'Gee, I'm going to grow it next year by making an acquisition,' you put your executive team in a very tough position, because they'll probably make a bad acquisition."

At the end of the day, D'Alessandro might just sell. He says the days are long gone "when companies could actually bulk up and prevent a takeover because they were too big to swallow. There are no life insurance companies that I know of that aren't considered fodder." Yet he is not resigned to that fate, nor does he resort to the survival-at-any-cost rhetoric of some defiantly independent CEOs. "There are some managements that you know are going to do everything in their power not to sell the company," says an investment banker who worked closely with D'Alessandro on Hancock's IPO. "David's not like that. He's shareholder-focused."

D'Alessandro's desire to hang on and make Hancock stronger, combined with the Massachusetts takeover protections, suggests that the company will stay independent for a while. Analyst Devine says, "I doubt it will be sold - until David has his stock options." In other words, not before February. "But once he has his options, there's going to be a bidding war."

Devine adds: "I could give a dozen names, with very deep pockets, that would jump at the chance to own John Hancock. There will be no shortage of bidders." There are worse fates, D'Alessandro suggests. "If we continue to build value for this company, then a sale would be great for our investors, because someone's going to have to pay a premium for us."