The French Jacqueline Casalegno, founder of the company Chanas Assurances died on January 23, 2019 in Douala at the age of 93 years.
By Achille Mbog Pibasso, Douala.
Exit definitely Jacqueline Casalegno of Chanas assurances. Although removed from the company’s day-to-day management for the last six years, the former all-powerful President and CEO (CEO) has not survived an illness that was gnawing at her despite a retirement in the peaceful highlands. of the West, particularly in the department of Noun where it has a vast land area.
His first fight, he lost in 2013 when it was necessary to comply with the provisions of the Organization for the Harmonization of African Affairs (OHADA) who would like the supervisory body that is the board of directors is dissociated from the day-to-day management of the company devolved to the general management. The same year, a director general is appointed who is far from being in the good graces of the president of the board of directors, provoking an avalanche of general managers, no less than four in the space of six years.
Yet when she takes over from her father in the 1950s, Jacqueline Casalegno will make Chanas & Privat a leading brokerage firm in this sector. His leadership will lead him to separate from Privat, another French group, to create Chanas under his control. His interpersonal skills and his know-how will attract investors of reference, like the National Society of hydrocarbons (SNH), the secular arm of the State in the oil and gas transactions which grant themselves 20% of the actions, becoming one of the major shareholders of Chanas.
Takeover of the public insurance company
With the acquisition of the Cameroonian Insurance and Reinsurance Corporation (SOCAR) in 1999 in a phase of privatization at “symbolic franc” of the public companies on injunctions of the donors, in this case, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which had placed the Cameroonian economy under structural adjustment a decade earlier, Chanas insurance will expand and dominate the insurance sector in Cameroon. Between 2002 and 2012, this company is leader of the sector not only within the Association of insurance companies of Cameroon (ASAC) but also in the sub-region with a portfolio estimated at nearly 24 billion FCFA. A turnover that makes this company one of the most important of the Inter-African Conference of Insurance Markets (CIMA).
Since 2013 after a long legal battle due to the new regulatory provisions of the OHADA, Chanas Insurance and its iconic leader have begun to lose ground. Proof of this is the endless bickering for the control of Chanas assurances by Jacqueline Casalegno and SNH, which will have the effect of making huge changes in the shareholding.
A restructuring that has given rise to a new shareholding, since the capital of Chanas is owned by private Cameroonians at 37%, the French group Casalegno up to 20%, the National Hydrocarbon Company 20%, the insurer Gabonese Ogar 18 % and other European partners 5%. Present only in property and casualty insurance, Chanas achieved a turnover of 12.1 billion FCFA in 2017, for a net result of 7.1 billion FCFA.
