NTUC Enterprise and Income speaks out against former CEO's open letter

NTUC Enterprise and Income Insurance has rebutted an open letter by former CEO Tan Suee Chieh dated 2 August on his personal Facebook account. The former CEO had raised objections to the Income-Allianz deal and posted the open letter to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) chairman Gan Kim Yong on Facebook and had asked government regulators to step in. He also criticised several aspects of the deal in the open letter. 

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In response, NTUC Enterprise and Income Insurance said that Gan's objections have "cast aspersions on the stakeholders in relation to this proposed transaction". 

"These aspersions are not well-founded and indeed, unfair," said NTUC Enterprise and Income Insurance in a statement seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.  

In the joint statement, NTUC Enterprise and Income Insurance said they have prioritised minority shareholders' interests and that it will continue to honour its social mission. "Allianz intends for Income Insurance to honour the terms of existing policies, to recognise the employees’ union and to uphold the principles of good labour-management relations in Singapore," said NTUC Enterprise and Income Insurance. 

"Finally, a company’s social mission is subject to varied interpretations. Income Insurance’s social mission is to provide affordable, inclusive insurance to all Singaporeans, which it intends to honour, with Allianz," it added. 

On 17 July, German insurer Allianz said that it had given a pre-conditional voluntary cash general offer to acquire at least 51% of the shares of Income Insurance. It said it would offer SG$40.58 per share for a total transaction value of approximately SG$2.2 billion for 51% of the shares in Income Insurance. 

In Tan's letter, he said that Allianz's acquisition is a "fundamental erosion of the social mission of NTUC Income" adding that "Allianz is a commercial profit-making entity".

"It is difficult to see how Allianz as a majority shareholder in control of NTUC Income is going to prioritise the social mission of NTUC Income over Allianz’s own profits," he said. 

"As you can see from this turn of events, this is not merely about the sale of Income to Allianz, or only about the social mission of our cooperatives. At heart, it is about the integrity of commitments given by institutions on which we rely to safeguard our nation’s economic well-being and citizens’ interests," added Tan in his open letter. 

Currently, online, there’s also been a petition going around to stop the sale.

PR professionals MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spoke to on 2 August all agree that from a communications perspective, what is lacking is a consistency in what has been said. Detractors on the other hand, have been able to eloquently put together why a sale would not be ideal. Others shared that prior education needed to be done on why the sale was being mulled. 

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