Blackstone veteran to chair new insurance/asset manager venture
Former Blackstone managing director Chinh Chu will serve as executive chair of newly-formed integrated insurance and asset management platform Westaim.
The platform was created following a $250m (£191.24m) investment by Chu’s private investment firm CC Capital into Westaim Corporation, a publicly-traded company based in Canada.
The new iteration of Westaim will bring together special situations asset manager Arena Investors and Ceres Life Insurance – a new company which focuses on fixed-index annuities.
Ceres Life will be led by Deanna Mulligan, former president and chief executive of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.
The two companies will co-exist under the Westaim brand, with Chu chairing the board.
Chu is the founder and senior managing director of CC Capital, and former senior managing director, co-head of private equity, and a member of the executive committee at Blackstone.
“This is a unique opportunity to create an integrated insurance and asset management platform,” said Chu.
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“Ceres Life will be competitively advantaged by Deanna Mulligan’s leadership and experience, its advanced tech platform and a sizeable, committed capital base.
“With this foundation, Ceres Life is positioned to scale rapidly and improve how the industry serves policyholders, generating stable insurance assets that will support Arena’s strong growth.
“We are confident that this transaction will create significant long-term value for Ceres Life policyholders and Westaim shareholders.”
CC Capital’s $250m investment brings Westaim’s total investable capital base to approximately $750m. It specialises in providing long-term capital to financial services businesses.
Under the terms of the deal, Arena is expected to benefit from access to long-dated insurance assets, while Ceres Life will “continue to develop its advanced technology platform and invest in enhanced distribution and service offerings to bring compelling annuities products to customers,” the company said.
Arena Investors’ asset management business has approximately $3.5bn of invested and committed assets under management. It aims to build its AUM to $10bn under the Westaim brand.
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“We are proud to provide our shareholders with the chance to participate in this unique strategic combination and join us on our significant value creation journey,” said Cameron MacDonald, chief executive of Westaim.
“We are transforming Westaim into a competitively advantaged, integrated insurance and asset management platform, with the potential to rapidly increase our AUM, and the network and talent to further accelerate our growth and success.
“Our focus at Westaim is to partner with businesses to compound wealth and provide above average returns over the long-term for our shareholders – and we believe this transaction massively delivers on that objective.
“We are thrilled to partner with Chinh and his team and with Deanna, who collectively bring demonstrated expertise in guiding the growth of world-class insurance and asset management businesses, and who will help enable us to unlock the tremendous potential of this unique platform.”
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