Allianz SE, Europe's biggest insurer, said first-quarter profit fell 66 percent after writedowns at the Dresdner Bank unit tied to the credit-market collapse. Net income fell to about 1.1 billion euros ($1.7 billion) from 3.2 billion euros a year earlier, the Munich-based insurer said in a statement today, citing preliminary results. Allianz fell as much as 2.2 percent in Frankfurt trading after missing the 1.32 billion- euro median estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Allianz's earnings have been eroded by Dresdner since its 23.5 billion-euro purchase in 2001. The Frankfurt-based banking division wrote down almost 900 million euros on credit securities in the first quarter related to the U.S. subprime mortgage market meltdown, adding to the 1.3 billion euros it marked down last year. ``It's time for them to get rid of Dresdner,'' said Juergen Meyer, who helps manage 1.2 billion euros at SEB Asset Management in Frankfurt. ``This shows once more that Dresdner Bank is Allianz's Chrysler,'' he said, referring to the German unit that Daimler AG shed last year, severing a nine-year tie that cut the U.S. automaker's market value by $12.6 billion. Reaching the 2009 operating profit target of 10 percent operating-profit growth is ``still feasible, even though this will become harder, the longer the financial crisis will last,'' Allianz Chief Financial Officer Helmut Perlet said in the statement. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJZ2_0aeFzZE&refer=home It's time to get rid of Dresdner ? They should never have acquired this second hand shop !
Time for Ackermann to step up and buy Dresdner. Would be the first time DB would buy something anti-cyclically.