MILAN (Reuters) - Zurich Insurance <ZURN.S> will meet all the targets laid out in its business plan to 2019 and could even beat them, Chief Executive Mario Greco said in an interview published in an Italian newspaper on Monday.
In the 2017-2019 period Zurich, Europe's fifth-largest insurer, plans to cut costs for a cumulative amount of $1.5 billion (1.1 billion pounds). In August it said it reached $900 million of the planned cost savings for end-2019.
"We are on track (on) all the goals (in our business plan) and we expect to meet them or even exceed all of them by the end of 2019," Greco told La Repubblica.
"The current business plan finishes at end-2019, but the strategy will remain the same and we will continue to develop it at an increasing speed."
According to its business plan, Zurich also aims to reach a Return on Equity (RoE) of more than 12 percent of its operating profit after tax and maintain a dividend of at least 18 Swiss francs per share.
Greco also told the Italian daily the group could partner with companies in sectors different from insurance -- such as telecom services, cybersecurity and energy -- to offer its clients wider insurance services.
(Reporting by Francesca Landini; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
