Great Eastern In Hell Of A Race

IT is never too early to take stock and, judging from the latest development, there is much thinking to do for insurer Great Eastern which has been under increasing pressure to maintain its business growth in the face of a walkout by senior executives and agents in the past year or so.

The losses stretch even further back to the past 18 months, sparked by a restructuring exercise in the company, which is the insurance arm of OCBC Bank. At least seven key executives and 300 agents have quit since then.

The resignations may be the inevitable result of housekeeping, which happens in every organisation at some point. Or it may signal deeper underlying problems.

But for now, Great Eastern is still in good shape. The question is: can it stay that way when the impact of the thinning of its top management and downsized sales force becomes fully felt?

The insurer's balance sheet shows no sign that it's losing its fitness. In the first nine months of the year, Great Eastern's net income almost doubled to S$732.9 million from S$394.1 million a year ago. The third quarter alone saw the insurer's net profit jump 21 per cent to S$235.5 million on higher operating and non-operating income, as well as more profit from shareholders' funds investments.

Total weighted new sales of the group rose 16 per cent to S$306.3 million in Q3, led by higher contribution from its Singapore agency and bancassurance channels.

While other insurers have to fight tooth and nail and pay big bucks to tie up with local banks to sell their products, Great Eastern can rely on parent company OCBC as a distribution channel. This is a big edge it has over its competitors.

Banks are a coveted sales conduit for insurers here, given that they have accounted for the lion's share of revenue for quite some years. While banks as a distribution channel have surpassed agency forces in sales, boosting insurers' topline more than anything else, the products sold are typically low margin. As some in the industry say, bancassurance is a "volume business".

Insurance agents, though, are the opposite. Their sales in terms of volume may not be as high, but the profit margin of the plans sold are. This is why insurers here are now saying their focus is on the protection business, which really means life policies.

Great Eastern seems to have taken a big hit in this low-sales, high-margin segment of the business when its rival AIA poached some 300 of its agents, known to be one of the most productive groups, to join the latter's new financial advisory firm. AIA dangled lucrative packages for the agents to migrate, but it said it was the price paid for moving up the technology ladder quickly.

The tricky bit for Great Eastern though is how it's going to pick itself up after the double whammy - first the loss of executives at the top and now its agents.

One of its biggest losses must be that of Khoo Kah Siang. In the past two years or so, Mr Khoo was heading Great Eastern's business development and regional bancassurance - and has given the insurer's competitor Manulife much competition in the market share department. From February next year, Mr Khoo will be helming Manulife as its Singapore chief, succeeding Naveed Irshad who has been promoted to a bigger role.

If Manulife, which distributes its products through Singapore's largest lender DBS, wants to beat Great Eastern in this game, the musical chairs cannot be any more strategic. The playing field for Great Eastern has certainly gotten more level - and it remains to be seen how long the insurer continues to stay in a position of strength.

Amid rivals' moves to push forward, Great Eastern has to figure out how to keep its agents' and advisers' morale up, maintain its bancassurance lead and embrace technology in a bigger fashion to transform its business.

So watch this space, because it will be one hell of a race.

Looks Like Me, Talks Like Me But Its Hillary

Casting further doubt on the authenticity of his notorious “Access Hollywood” tape, Donald J. Trump said on Monday that the voice on the tape was actually that of Hillary Clinton, imitating him.

“That’s not me on the tape,” he said. “That’s Hillary faking like she is me.”

Trump said that he had a theory to explain how Clinton came up with the infamous “locker-room talk” that appeared on the tape. “It’s so obvious that Bill came up with that,” he said.

Trump added that if the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has any recordings of Trump associates, such as Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn, colluding with Russians, those voices will “probably turn out to belong to Crooked Hillary also.”

“In addition to being evil, Hillary Clinton is a woman of a thousand voices,” he said.

Zimbabwe Tyranny Hits Big Lottery

President Emmerson Mnanagagwa took over from veteran dictator Robert Mugabe last week. But the new regime has already sparked controversy after opposition politicians said the police and the army were still in control.There has been an outcry after it was revealed Mugabe, 93, received a whopping $10 million (£7.5 million) pay-off after 37 years in power that have left his country bankrupted.

Now the President has sacked his entire cabinet, appointing just two new ministers. A spokesman for the President said that Mnangagwa was putting together a new team, and he wanted to get rid of the old ministers so that services were "uninterrupted".

He went on to say that the new leader of Zimbabwe, which has a 90% unemployment record, would meet with ministers tomorrow.Military and police chiefs today warned that there have been outbreaks of looting and illegal occupation of farms and houses in the country since last week's inauguration.

Mugabe, for his part, seems to have cut the mother of all deals, to steal a phrase from a now-deceased autocrat on another continent. Not only will the 93-year-old get a reported $10 million golden parachute to mark the end of his 37-year tenure (a $5 million lump sum up front and the remaining $5 million in tranches) but the government will continue to pay his $150,000 salary and his medical care, according to several media reports. He will be allowed to remain in “Blue Roof,” his 25-bedroom home in Harare, will continue to receive security protection and has been guaranteed that his private properties will remain his. His domestic staff and foreign travel will be paid for by the government, according to media reports.

All that and full immunity to boot. The government has also announced that Robert Mugabe's birthday, February 21, will be declared a public holiday.

America Top Export - Bull's Manure

A New York Times piece published on Saturday delves into Trump’s un-shocking decision to endorse U.S. Senate candidate and alleged sexual predator Roy Moore over the fierce objections of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — whose brilliant plan was to subvert democracy by getting Governor Kay Ivey to delay the election.

Like Moore, Trump has been accused of sexual assault by several women, and like Moore, he has refused to budge an inch on the question of his innocence. As the Times reveals, though, Trump has gone way beyond mere denials. He has taken to contesting objective reality itself: 

But something deeper has been consuming Mr. Trump. He sees the calls for Mr. Moore to step aside as a version of the response to the now-famous "Access Hollywood" tape, in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitalia, and the flood of groping accusations against him that followed soon after. He suggested to a senator earlier this year that it was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. (In the hours after it was revealed in October 2016, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the voice was his, and he apologized.)

So now, Trump not only is insisting that the lies he spouts all day are true, but also has created a new set of facts that contradicts the ones he has already acknowledged. But, hey, who are you going to believe, President Trump or your lying ears? The fact that for about 38 percent of the country the answer is “President Trump” is almost as disturbing as the possibility that the president may be more mentally unfit for office than most people acknowledge.

Seaweed Cups - Jakarta

Jakarta food and beverages retailer Ong Tek Tjan sells ice cream in cups his customers can eat afterwards, instead of throwing away - they are made from seaweed and taste like jelly, in flavours from peppermint to green tea.

Indonesian start-up Evoware, which makes the cups, as well as other containers, from farmed seaweed free of chemicals, is relying on its biodegradable alternative to plastic packaging to reduce contamination of the environment.

"I too support this environment-friendly cause," said vendor Ong, who uses Evoware's Ello Jello container to serve ice cream, though he feels consumers may take time to adapt to the product that is pricier than current options.

Indonesia, which has some of the world's filthiest rivers and once-pristine beaches littered with plastic waste, has joined a United Nations-led clean-up drive after being rated the second-biggest plastic marine polluter, behind China.

Evoware co-founder David Christian said the idea of seaweed-based edible packaging was spurred by his desire to fight an explosion in plastic waste over the last few years in his home city of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital of 10 million people.

"I saw how much plastic waste is produced here, which takes hundreds or thousands of years to degrade and contaminates everything," Christian added.

From the first product it developed, the seaweed-based jelly cup, Evoware is expanding into other types of packaging, such as dissolvable sachets for coffee or seasonings.

Indonesia produces 10 million tonnes of seaweed each year and targets 19 million tonnes by 2020, said Christian.

But Evoware's products, now made by hand, still have some way to go before they can compete with plastic on price.

The edible seaweed Ello Jello cone can be up to five times more expensive than ordinary crepe cones, according to Ong. And it uses wrappings of plastic and paper to preserve its texture.

"I hope in future the packaging could be better and not use plastic," said one customer, Vince Lantang Helda.

Bloated Civil Service - Malaysia

The Malaysian civil service is right at the top when it comes to the size of the civil service. There is one civil servant for every 19.37 people in the country, according to Second Finance Minister Johari Abdul Ghani.

The proportion of civil servants to the national population in other countries such as Singapore is 1 to 71.4 people; Indonesia 1:110; Korea 1:50, China 1:108, Japan 1:28, Russia 1:84 and the United Kingdom 1:118.

The bloated civil service of 1.6 million has caused government expenditure to rise yearly. Despite the fact that salaries and pensions to civil servants continue to soar, the government has no plans to reduce the number of civil servants, according to Johari. 

“One of the issues that we have to address is the ever-increasing government operating costs and expenses. For example, we have about 1.6 million civil servants, which is the world’s largest proportion of civil service,” Johari was quoted as having said.

“In 2003, the pay of public servants totalled RM22 billion, but it increased to RM74 billion by 2016. In 2003, the pension of civil servants was RM5.9 billion, and in 2016 the amount soared to RM19 billion,” he was quoted as saying.

Johari acknowledged that payments would continue to increase in future while the government’s revenues would gradually decline.

“In particular, revenues from the palm oil and natural gas industries, which generated profits of about RM65 billion in 2014, fell sharply to RM30 billion in 2016. We will not reduce our existing civil service. Instead, we should encourage civil servants to undertake more jobs in their respective departments to increase their productivity,” Johari was quoted.

Last March that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim had told parliament that as at December 2014, the ethnic composition of the civil service was as follows: 78.8% Malays, Bumiputera Sabah (6.1%), Bumiputera Sarawak (4.8 %), Chinese (5.2 %), Indians (4.1 %), Other Bumiputera (0.3%) and Others (0.7%).

Sweet Deal From Sunlife

Earlier this month, Sun Life Financial Asia announced a diabetes awareness study which covered the markets like Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, revealing the public’s lack of basic understanding of diabetes, people have strong associations with unfavorable characteristics, such as dangerous driving (37%), laziness (38%), lack of energy (62%), not being athletic (43%) and having mood swings (43%). Such stigma also exists in Hong Kong, where over half (51%) of respondents think diabetics are not energetic.

Sun Life Financial Asia’s CMO Jeremy Young said the firm always has a strong focus both globally and regionally in Asia on diabetes, which is a growing health risk that it first started to bring attention to as far back as 1925. “With this study, we want to educate the community about this disease and drive positive change on common misconceptions and attitudes towards those living with diabetes.”

Young explained “diabetes is less of a campaign and more of a focus – we have to help the communities we live and work in.”

He said Sun Life believes that prevention is better than cure and awareness is the first step towards prevention. By educating and raising awareness about this chronic disease, he hopes that people are able to live a healthier lifestyles by taking charge of their lives and schedules and by paying more attention to personal well-being.

“In Hong Kong, we have a programme with special life insurance rates for diabetics who undertake regular management in order to encourage them to take control of their condition. A true long-term goal and aspiration is to see a reduction in the rate of people diagnosed with diabetes.”

This is beyond our brand logo, and needs to be our brand experience.

For example, he said the firm has been helping Filipinos become more financially aware through its financial literacy programme since 2009, which has adapted with time and evolution and is going from strength to strength.

Going forward, Young said being consistent is important when it comes to marketing.

“To have a consistent message and position about who we are and what we provide that resonates with our clients across the various platforms that they use (linking the messages, and speaking their language). This seems simple, yet with so many exciting messages to share and mediums with which to connect to our clients, you can very easily confuse people and end up having no message at all.”

As 2018 is around the corner, he said some marketing and brand campaigns are in the pipeline, people will see themes across Asia starting with Sun Life Financial Asia Resolution Run in January and February.

Following that, a number of planned events and activities across the region that will build awareness of who it is and what it stands for, raising its profile. “Our annual title sponsorship of the Sun Life Stanley International Dragon Boat Championships in Hong Kong will definitely be part of it.”