Description: This presentation is a panel discussion from the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held October 20-23 in Toronto. The panelists discuss the current life insurance company merger and acquisition environment, and determining the value of a life insurance company. Topics include the actuarial valuation methodology, including the just adopted actuarial standard of practice, investment analyst valuation, and the risks associated with change of control. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 17, No. 4B.

Description: Increasing uncertainties and volatility in financial as well as real goods markets increasingly reveal that controlling systems based on deterministic and pseudo-exact values are insufficiently eligible to manage the business activities. This raises the question how management systems can be modified to generate the adequate management impulses in volatile periods. Risk management deals from identifying, evaluating and aggregating chances and risks, which again determine the potential fluctuation range of relevant performance indicators. Everyday corporate life shows that risk management is considered important; but the corresponding processes to identify, evaluate and report chances and risks are seldom part of established decision criteria. This “paradox” lets assume that risks are managed in various differing and unsystematic ways. The combination of traditional controlling methods and risk management is not primarily a methodological challenge. The behavior of the whole organization, practiced over a long-year period, has to be transferred into a new corporate culture of transparent dealing with chances and risks. This paper describes the necessary change management process, which has to come along with necessary methodological modifications.