Broker to offer new capital management strategies for banks, investors and insurers

BPL, the world’s leading independent credit and political risk insurance (CPRI) broker, has launched its Funded Solutions team, offering new insurance-related capital and credit management strategies (including repackagings or “repacks”), which will be utilised by a wide range of financial institutions. The team will target the product at the existing customers of the credit insurance market and also new market entrants from bank, insurer, asset manager and investor sectors.

The Funded Solutions team will offer a platform for cash collateralised and insured risk participation transactions that allows risk sellers to achieve a more efficient management of capital and credit allocations whilst risk buyers will access low-risk assets at an enhanced yield. Credit insurers will continue to grow their relationships and develop their books in accordance with their current objectives.

This offering is highly relevant considering the significant growth of the credit insurance market over the past decade and the resulting build-up of capital allocated to insured assets and the pressure on credit lines. BPL’s insured book now exceeds US$100bn, a clear demonstration of this growth.

As such, BPL’s Funded Solutions team will continue to serve banking clients and the team will concurrently expand the offering to a relatively untapped credit insurance client base: institutional investors. The strategy will allow these investors to start harnessing the CPRI product in a similar fashion to banks, providing them with investment grade assets generating comparatively enhanced returns.

Forming BPL’s Funded Solutions team are its newly appointed Directors, George Biddulph and Harriet Rowland Clark.

With over 23 years of experience in fixed income and credit risk at Willis and Credit Suisse (now UBS). Biddulph will establish the Funded Solutions platform for banking clients to distribute, insure and fund or acquire risk. Rowland Clark will be charged with tailoring repackaging solutions for existing BPL clients, having pioneered the product in her previous role in Aegon Asset Management’s Insured Strategies team.

The team is further bolstered by the capability of BPL’s Significant Risk Transfer lead, Riz Sheikh, as well as Gregory King-Underwood, who leads its Reinsurance and Portfolio Solutions offering.

Charlie Radcliffe, Chief Commercial Officer, BPL, said: “While we have been picking up on the demand for a while, we believe our Funded Solutions offering to be unique on the broking side in terms of the level of expertise we now have. It positions both existing and prospective clients to capitalise on the type of innovation in our market that has led to its impressive growth in recent years.”

George Biddulph, Director, BPL said: “This initiative will directly support the growing mobilisation of capital into the target areas of a range of development, commercial and investment banks, while providing a mechanism for insurers to continue to demonstrate their ever-increasing relevance in support of the same aim. The growth objective is supported by investments that the credit insurance market has made to develop their knowledge and systems in order to take such risks.”

Harriet Rowland-Clark, Director, BPL said: “Having spent the last eight years as a buyer of credit insurance it is great to be back in the insurance market broking these innovative structures. The scale of interest from non-bank FIs in this asset class is a true reflection of how important this type of credit protection is set to become for a much broader swathe of the FI community.”