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Allianz has approached holding companies to put forward creative and media teams to pitch.

It is thought that partnerships from WPP, including Young & Rubicam and Grey with media agencies from Group M, will be involved.

Omnicom is understood to be putting forward BBDO and DDB in partnership with media agencies from Omnicom Media Group.

The pitch will be run out of Allianz's German headquarters and is scheduled to take place in mid-June.

The winning agencies will handle the insurance company's entire global ad business, but the initial briefs will have more of an emphasis on key European markets, including the UK, Germany and Spain.

The incumbent on the global creative account is BBDO Germany, while global media is handled by OMD, which took over the business in 2003.

No formal pitch took place at the time, but the account moved from Initiative Media Worldwide following a number of discussions that included Carat and Mindshare.

In May last year, Allianz appointed Joshua G2 as the lead UK strategic agency for its Cornhill Direct DM products following a four-way pitch against Archibald Ingall Stretton, Draftfcb and Tullo Marshall Warren.

The pitch was overseen by The Observatory.

Last week, the insurer announced a 97 per cent drop in first-quarter net profits.

The fall is credited to Allianz's decision to sell Dresdner Bank to Commerzbank after seven years of ownership.

The deal depressed its net income to just £25 million, down from £1.05 billion in the first quarter of last year.

Net income from operations, excluding Dresdner, was £374 million against £1.2 billion a year ago.