Investment from the insurance business contributed 14.6 (13.8) billion euros to the investment income (also see table 38 “Sup- plementary information on insurance business – Investment in- come” on page 157 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements). An additional 2.2 (2.7) billion euros of investment income came from the banking business. Investment income in fiscal 2003 came to 16.9 billion euros, down 0.3 billion euros on the previous year. Current income decreased from 17.8 to 15.5 billion euros. Two effects are essentially responsible for the decline. First, Eurohyp AG was de-consolidated in 2003. Secondly, we ac- counted for Munich Re by the equity method until the end of the first quarter of 2003 and therefore recognized the pro-rata share of its fourth-quarter loss as current income. Realized prof- its and losses amounted to 5.7 (4.1) billion euros. It results above all from transactions within the framework of our equity reduction program and from the sale of the Beiersdorf shares. Write-downs totaled 5.4 (5.9) billion euros in fiscal 2003, with securities available-for-sale accounting for 4.8 (5.5) billion euros of this amount. The weak equity markets in the first quarter of the year in particular had made these write-downs necessary. At year-end we extended our write-down regulations and also wrote off equities that had been in a loss position for longer than a year. The write-downs in 2003 were compensated by write-ups of 2.0 (0.7) billion euros. These were mainly thanks to the sus- tained recovery on equity markets after the second quarter 2003.  Income from trading activities , including earnings contributions from trading liabilities, amounted to 0.2 (1.5) billion euros. The positive trading income from the banking segment of 1.5 (1.1) billion euros surpassed our expectations. In contrast, a charge accrued in property and casualty insurance from the use of de- rivatives amounted to a total of 1.4 billion euros. Essentially, the charge relates to a macro hedge for hedging the equity ex- posure. The hedge was achieved by means of forward sales and put options on indices. By selling equities and actually reduc- ing the equity exposure, this macro hedge has been lowered again in the same degree. IFRS accounting regulations require that the change in the market value of the derivatives of this macro hedge is affecting net income, while the contrary mar- ket value changes of the underlying equities are directly charged to the equity capital without affecting the operating result, and are affecting net income when they are realized on the capital market. As a result of this different treatment of market value changes, a charge resulted from the derivatives of 1.3 billion euros as a consequence of the recovery on equity markets. To compensate this charge, we have partially realized the corre- spondingly higher revaluation reserves in the equity capital. The realized gains from the sale of equities amounted in 2003 to al- together 9.5 billion euros for the Allianz Group, which com- pared with losses of 5.4 billion euros. Expenses for the management of investments and for inter- est amounted to 1.3 (1.7) billion euros. G ROUP MANAGEMENT REPORT Asset Management 83