Insurance company Aegon will reduce its costs by 5% in the course of 2009 at the latest, CEO Alexander Wynaendts told a shareholders meeting in London on Monday.

Wynaendts said the saving of €150m is necessary to ease the pressure on the company’s income and margins as a result of the credit crisis on financial markets, reports the Financieele Dagblad.
The savings will be made ‘as quickly as possible’, Wynaendts told the meeting.
Salaries in the US, where Aegon has 60% of its activities, will be frozen in 2009, and Wynaendts did not rule out job cuts.
Activities in Britain and the Netherlands will be reorganised, he said, adding that the Netherlands contribution to cost cutting will be ‘proportional’.
Aegon, which received a capital injection of €3bn from the Dutch state in October and asked for American government help last week, is under pressure because the value of its shares has nosedived and it made a €329m loss in the third quarter of 2008.
On Monday shares rose 21% to €3.25.