Lehman Brothers bring new source of risk financing to the P&C insurance market
Lehman Brothers, the global investment bank, has announced its subsidiary, Libero Ventures, has received authorisation from the FSA and is to begin trading.
Libero’s principal focus is Reinsurance Financing, a tool which allows insurers to improve their overall return on capital.
Lehman said insurers using Reinsurance Financing will retain the exposures that they want on their own balance sheet, sell on that risk which can be stored more efficiently in the capital markets, while redeploying freed up capital to boost returns on equity. Reinsurance Financing is suitable for execution in single class, multi-class or whole account portfolios.
Stuart Degg, chief executive officer of Libero, said: “Libero’s Reinsurance Financing offer allows outperforming insurers to more accurately segment and finance their risk portfolios. With Lehman Brothers acting as principal, we have simplified access to the capital markets, making it cost effective and bringing the benefits of access to enormous capital resources to bear on a wide range of insurance risk”.
Peter Sugarman, managing director of Lehman Brothers Insurance Advisory Group and Chairman of Libero said: “Lehman already has a leading position in insurance capital markets, with particular strength in both the life and catastrophe sectors. Libero’s Reinsurance Financing business will help us to extend that leadership into the large and strategically important vanilla property and casualty insurance market place”.
