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Ark Syndicate Management
London, 12th March 2007 – Aquiline Capital Partners LLC (‘Aquiline’), a leading private equity firm investing in financial services, and Whittington Group, a leading insurance investor and services provider, along with Swiss Re and Lehman Brothers, announced today the launch of Lloyd’s based underwriting agency Ark Syndicate Management Limited (‘Ark’ or ‘The Company’). The Company has gained approval from the Financial Services Authority and Lloyd’s Franchise Board for Lloyd’s Syndicate 4020, and will begin writing policies incepting from 1st April 2007.
Ark will underwrite a diversified, balanced book of insurance and reinsurance, in marine, energy, property and casualty classes. The Company has a stamp capacity of £114m for the 2007 year of account.
Ark’s management team has an exceptional history of profitable underwriting and successful franchise development. David Foreman, who led the formation process, is Ark’s Chief Underwriting Officer. Mr. Foreman has more than 30 years’ experience at Lloyd’s and was CUO of Wellington Syndicate 2020 until his retirement from the company in April 2006. Ian Beaton will serve as Chief Executive Officer of the Company. Mr Beaton was formerly Head of Insurance at Aspen. Prior to this, he was co-leader of McKinsey’s European Property and Casualty insurance practice. Nick Bonnar will be Ark’s Director of Underwriting. He has almost 20 years’ underwriting and broking experience and was most recently Head of Specialty Lines at Aspen. In addition, William Malloy, former President of Marsh, will serve as non-executive chairman of the Company.
Commenting on the launch of Ark, Mr. Foreman said: “With the backing of several highly regarded investors and an experienced management and underwriting team, Ark will offer clients high quality, disciplined and innovative underwriting solutions. We intend to establish a market-leading syndicate by building a diversified and balanced book of business across a broad range of insurance and reinsurance classes.”
Whittington Group, who sponsored the formation of Ark and has invested in the Company, will provide third party services, IT infrastructure and other support functions to Ark. Whittington Group CEO Tony Hobrow said: “Whittington is experienced at looking for opportunities of this kind. In Ark we identified an exceptional management team and a market opportunity. We are proud to have sponsored the whole process and believe that Ark will be a great success.”
Aquiline Capital Partners LLC (‘Aquiline’) is the lead investor in Ark. Jeffrey Greenberg, the Managing Principal of Aquiline, will become Chairman of the holding company, Bermuda-based Group Ark Insurance Holdings Limited.
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