Iordanou & Hendrick’s Vantage to launch with ILS expertise from McKeown & Swithenbank

Vantage, a new insurance and reinsurance start-up business being brought to market by industry veterans Greg Hendrick and Dinos Iordanou, will launch with significant insurance-linked securities (ILS) expertise in key roles, we understand.

Vantage is setting itself up for launch, with timing designed to capitalise on accelerating market conditions across insurance and reinsurance, but also on market trends, promising fresh capital and a new perspective on risk and how that is matched with capacity.

One of the most discussed potential Class of 2021 insurance and reinsurance start-ups, Vantage now has a name and further details have emerged on key executive roles in the business.

In addition, the company is now expected to launch with backing from very experienced capital partners Hellman & Friedman and The Carlyle Group, both of which have significant track records supporting private equity raises for insurance and reinsurance businesses.

On the executive team bringing re/insurance start-up Vantage to market, Dinos Iordanou, of Arch Capital fame, is set to take the role of Non-Executive Chairman and Greg Hendrick, formerly of AXA XL, will be the firm’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Of more interest to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) side of the market and hinting at the fact Vantage will likely take a fresh approach to how it marshals capital, from both traditional and likely alternative sources, Chris McKeown, the former CEO of ILS asset manager New Ocean Capital Management will have responsibility for running Reinsurance, Risk and Innovation at Vantage.

Also intriguing from an insurance-linked securities (ILS) and capital markets perspective, Aurora Swithenbank, formerly a Partner and Head of Insurance in the Americas Financing Group at Goldman Sachs and who led much of the ILS structuring and bookrunning business at the investment bank in recent years, will become the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Vantage.

Finally, Vantage has also made a key appointment in the property catastrophe arena, with Nick Pritchard, formerly of Neon, set to become the executive who will lead its property catastrophe reinsurance underwriting business.

As the Vantage team comes together we can begin to get a view of the potentially innovative approaches that could be adopted by the firm, given the broad experience across both traditional reinsurance and ILS or capital markets expertise, alongside the deep pockets of its private equity backers.

That makes for a mouth-watering prospect, should this new start-up look to identify and pursue a more hybrid operating model, rather than simply following the well-trodden reinsurance start-up path.