Captives key to responsible governance, says AMRAE’s Wild

Captives will play a leading role in corporate governance and helping companies transition to a new business reality, said Oliver Wild, president of AMRAE, at the French risk management association’s annual conference.

Opening the 30th edition of Les Rencontres de l’AMRAE, Wild said that the implementation of new captive rules in France was “more than a victory” for the association. “It was a promise fulfilled,” he said.

After years of discussion, the French government approved measures in December aimed at making it easier for companies to create captives in France. The new rules, approved as part of a package of measures to boost risk management and resilience among French companies, meet demands made by AMRAE for several years.

Wild said captives can now be at the heart of corporate efforts to adapt to the changing economy and processes like the energy transition.

“(The captive) is not a tax optimisation tool, but a real tool to manage the risks that lie at the heart of governance… it is a dashboard for the company’s prevention and protection efforts,” said the risk manager for Veolia.

Wild stressed that captives help companies manage and transfer difficult and emerging risks. “A captive is a means to cool down the hot potato thrown to future generations,” he said.

The three-day Rencontres opened in Deauville on Wednesday 1 February with more than 3,200 registered participants, a record according to the organisation.

The main theme of the event is the future of the planet and how risk managers can play a leading role in helping their companies spot the opportunities created by the dramatic changes under way.

“All of us who are here, and anywhere on the planet, we are on the front line,” Wild said. “That is the reason why the duty of the risk manager is not to panic, but to warn and to escort governance to the land of solutions.”

He added that many crises over the past few years have enabled risk managers to highlight the real value of the function. He urged his colleagues to act as “builders of what is possible” and to embrace opportunities ahead to create responsible companies.

Wild said that AMRAE is also evolving, putting more emphasis on themes such as social responsibility.

Governance is high among the topics covered by the association’s training courses. Partnerships with entities such as DFCG, an association of financial directors, and Medef, France’s main trade body of corporations, are expanding. These partnerships aim to spread risk management and good governance across France’s business community.