Värde Partners and Agam Capital are forming a joint venture pursue the acquisition, reinsurance and management of life and retirement businesses globally.
The joint venture combines the investment management expertise of Värde Partners with the proprietary insurance solutions platform developed by Agam, and will have the capability to price and manage complex insurance products with embedded market and actuarial risks, on a global basis. It will serve as a turnkey solution for financial modelling and enterprise risk management to provide comprehensive economic solutions to life insurance companies.
In connection with the launch of the JV, Värde Partners is seeking initially to invest USD500 million in complex life insurance, annuity, and reinsurance assets that will be supported by the JV. This is part of Värde’s strategy to broaden its investing in targeted sub-sectors of the financial services industry, marking the expansion of its private equity strategy into insurance.
Elena Lieskovska, Partner and Head of European Financial Services at Värde Partners, says: “Given the current landscape of historically low interest rates and fundamental regulatory and accounting changes, we believe the opportunity across the USD23 trillion life insurance industry is huge. Life insurance companies are increasingly seeking risk mitigation solutions for legacy blocks of liabilities with multi-dimensional risks. This is particularly true for complex annuity products, such as those with high guarantees or exposure to certain market risks, which typically attract a higher capital charge. We are excited to expand Värde’s financial services footprint into insurance, and partner with Agam to provide alternative solutions to the industry.”
Agam’s Co-Founders, Avi Katz and Chak Raghunathan, says: “The need for multi-dimensional solutions to the complex changes facing the life insurance industry has never been greater. Against this backdrop, we believe the combination of Värde Partner’s core strengths in complex transactions together with Agam’s differentiated pALM platform will create a world-class insurance solutions provider. In particular, the Agam platform is designed to price, analyze and manage complex insurance products with embedded capital market risks and offers creative structures and solutions on a global basis.”
