Page 172 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 17 - CIC INSURANCE (CIC)
presented, the increase in scale and in market share. Due diligence was commenced, led by myself with the assistance of Gordon Siggins and Don Wallace. As CIC was a listed company we had bought it in the Afrikaans expression “Voets Toots” or in English “warts and all”. Inevitably we found lots of skeletons! In particular there was a lack of adequate provisions.
I had a directive from Norwich to change the Board, which I did. That resulted in the Chairman and the existing directors all being replaced with Norwich UK and Winterthur (Swiss) directors. It was shortly afterwards that NW decided that they would restructure the business in Australia and took the decision that the existing CIC CEO be appointed the MD for insurance company operations in Australia and I be responsible for all other activities of the Group.
This Group covered all the subsidiaries and joint ventures and so this meant I had to keep the existing management team and staff. For some of the staff the future was somewhat blurred. CIC and its CEO had a strange culture. This involved staff who were offered positions in the new CIC being required to walk over a bridge in the CEO’s office and take an oath of loyalty. Some people referred to it as walking the plank.
Those staff who chose not to “walk the plank” and take the “oath of loyalty” to the CEO were offered incentives to serve out a period of transition in the Group. It was also agreed that I should be prepared to release the staff as and when these companies’ futures were determined.
It is worth mentioning that shortly after this Lion was also sold to CIC and the Lion staff were presented with much the same choices.
One of the consequences of the NW purchase of CIC was its impact on their shareholding in AAMI, which as I have mentioned earlier, was the subject of litigation itself. The shareholders’ agreement provided that as long as there was no change in the original shareholding of the business, the shareholder could continue to enjoy its participation. However, this was disputed and in the
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