Allianz reaffirms full-year targets after profits rise in Q1

German insurance giant Allianz said Monday that it is upholding its full-year targets for this year despite a decline in revenues and underlying profits in the first three months.

At the same time, special gains boosted the group's bottom line in the three-month period, Allianz said.

Allianz said in a statement that its net profit grew by 20.5 percent to 2.2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in the period from January to March.

That was ahead of analysts' expectations for first-quarter profit of around 1.55 billion euros.

The increase was "driven in part by non-operating realised gains," the statement said, without specifying further.

By contrast, underlying or operating profit declined by 3.5 percent to 2.8 billion euros and revenues dropped by 6.4 percent to 35.4 billion euros, Allianz continued.

"We had a strong start to 2016, reinforcing our confidence that we will be able to reach our outlook for 2016 despite the fact that this is a challenging year for the financial services industry," said chief executive Oliver Baete.

"Despite the market volatility and low interest rates, we continue to expect an operating profit for the full year of 10.5 billion euros, plus or minus 500 million euros."

Allianz said it would publish further details of its first-quarter results on May 11.

Investors applauded the better-than-expected net profit figure and Allianz shares were the top gainer on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Monday afternoon, adding 3.1 percent to 152.85 euros, while the overall DAX index was up 0.99 percent.