Senior hires made by Conduit Re

22 December 2020

Press release: Conduit Holdings Limited ("Conduit Holdings")

Senior hires made by Conduit Re

Conduit Reinsurance Limited ("Conduit Re"), the main operating subsidiary of Conduit Holdings, today announces a number of senior hires into its underwriting, management and executive team:

·    Chris Board, Head of International Property and Short Tail Specialty

·    Erik Soria, Head of US Casualty

·    Greg Roberts, Head of Property

·    Marc Bearman, Head of Specialty - Marine and Energy

·    Andrew Smith, Chief Risk Officer

·    Keith Griffin, Chief Actuary

·    Bianca Harris, Head of Human Resources

Conduit Holdings' shares were admitted to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange on 7 December 2020. Conduit Re holds a Class IV license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority and has been assigned a Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and a Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of "a-" by AM Best.  

Trevor Carvey, CEO and Chief Underwriting Officer, said, "We are delighted to welcome our new colleagues to the business. We are now well into the 1/1 renewal season and are underwriting business on the lines we have been targeting. Market conditions continued to strengthen in the run up to completion of our IPO and we are very pleased with the quality and terms of what we are writing."

Neil Eckert, Executive Chairman, said, "Conduit Re is off to a strong start, benefitting from the year of preparation we put into the plan prior to launch. We are pleased to recruit a number of high calibre individuals who fit with the team ethos we set out at IPO. We will issue a formal trading update to shareholders on 19th January 2021."

Notes to Editors

Contacts

Media: David Haggie, Caroline Klein, Haggie Partners
+44 (0) 207 562 4444
[email protected]

Other: [email protected]

Website

Further details of the Conduit Group can be found at its website: https://conduitreinsurance.com/

Biographies of new appointments:

Chris Board - Head of International Property and Short Tail Specialty*

Chris has an 18 year track record in international property and specialty reinsurance underwriting. He started his career at MS Amlin, originally underwriting international property and subsequently global specialty.  After 15 years at MS Amlin, he joined Apollo Syndicate as Head of International Treaty where he helped to build their global portfolio.

Erik Soria - Head of US Casualty

Erik started his career as a casualty broker originally at Aon Benfield and latterly as an SVP of Willis Re's casualty treaty division. In 2012, Erik became senior casualty treaty underwriter for QBE North America, where he also spent a year underwriting for QBE's flagship Lloyd's syndicate (Syndicate 566). He was ultimately appointed to lead QBE's new Bermuda branch, setting up and establishing the business. Erik's most recent role was as SVP of US treaty casualty at Sirius. Erik was responsible for the build out of the account from the outset.

Greg Roberts, Head of Property

Greg has 20 years underwriting experience. His experience includes 17 years at MS Amlin where he became Head of North American Property Treaty. Furthermore, Greg held a key role in the establishment of Amlin Bermuda in 2006. In 2018, he joined AmTrust to establish and build their new reinsurance division as Head of AmTrust Re including the build out and hiring of the team.

Marc Bearman, Head of Specialty - Marine and Energy*

Marc has a career of more than 20 years in global specialty reinsurance, with a particular specialisation in marine and energy. He started his career as a reinsurance broker, originally for Aon Re before joining Guy Carpenter and then JLT Re. Marc moved to underwriting in 2012, joining XL Re as the Global Head of Marine and Energy, latterly Marc has had responsibility as the senior specialty underwriter for Axa XL in Bermuda

Andrew Smith, Chief Risk Officer

Andrew is a qualified accountant and an experienced risk management professional with a 20 year career in the insurance and reinsurance industry specialising in risk management and corporate governance. His most recent position, prior to joining Conduit Re, was as the Chief Risk Officer for Qatar Re. where he was responsible for establishing and managing the group's risk management function. Previously, he held leadership roles with PwC in London and Bermuda and EY in Bermuda, where he was focused on risk, capital management and governance.

Keith Griffin, Chief Actuary*

Keith has over 20 years' experience working as an actuary in the Property and Casualty industry, particularly in the reinsurance sector.  Prior to joining Conduit Re, Keith was most recently the Chief Actuary at Peak Capital and was part of the senior management team there. Prior to this, Keith was the Chief Actuary for Ariel Re based in Bermuda. Keith has worked in a variety of roles and successful organisations in his career including Bermuda, Lloyd's and International reinsurance. Keith is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

Bianca Harris, Head of Human Resources

Bianca has a 20 year career in all aspects of the HR function in Bermuda and the USA. Prior to joining Conduit Re, she spent 14 years with AIG in a variety of HR management roles including recruitment, training and development and administration. Bianca started her career with the US Navy where she spent six years specialising in HR and recruitment. She holds an MBA in Human Resources Management, an MED in Instructional Technology and Design and is a PACE accredited instructor at the Bermuda College.

*Application has been made to the Bermuda Government for work permit approval

About Conduit Re

·    Conduit Re is a newly established reinsurance underwriting business focusing on producing strong risk adjusted returns from a diversified and focused business plan. The business has been formed to capitalise on what the Company's founders, Neil Eckert and Trevor Carvey (the "Founders") believe to be an exceptional market opportunity.

·    Conduit Re writes reinsurance in the property, casualty and specialty classes. Years of high insured losses, diminished reserves and the more recent losses and industry strain caused by Covid-19 and severe capacity shortages in certain classes of insurance and reinsurance have produced major corrections in reinsurance pricing and policy terms & conditions.

·    Against the industry background of losses, litigation and capacity constraint, as a new business, Conduit Re has no legacy exposure and its strong and unencumbered balance sheet is available to write new business in what the Founders believe to be an attractive market environment.

·    Conduit Re is led by two highly successful, experienced and networked industry executives, Neil Eckert and Trevor Carvey.

·    Conduit Re has been established to build a strong underwriting franchise which will target strong cross-cycle returns on equity in the mid-teens. The business plan has a balanced approach to catastrophe risk exposures, generating profit and franchise value through the quality of its underwriting and its select portfolio of high-quality business.

·    Conduit Re expects to generate significant returns for its shareholders and to provide an ongoing and progressive dividend.  The Company is targeting a dividend as soon as during the 2021 financial year of approximately 5% - 6% of equity capital, allocated between an interim and final distribution.  Conduit Re will manage its balance sheet efficiently and in the long term may return excess capital through special dividends or share buybacks where appropriate.

·    Following years of de-listings, in weak industry conditions and upon industry consolidation, Conduit Re offers investors the opportunity to take advantage of prevailing, highly positive industry conditions through investment in a listed business which is legacy free and focused only on reinsurance.

·    Conduit Re believes that sound ESG principles should be strongly embedded across the business and that this promotes better risk management, innovation, sustainable outperformance and positive community engagement. Conduit Re intends to be a carbon neutral business. Conduit Re will target a Net-Zero position through a combination of sound business practices and strategically chosen offset initiatives.

Learn more:

Web: https://conduitreinsurance.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/conduit-re
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Conduit_Re