Sustain ILS Management launched by Paschal Brooks & Justin Hull

Sustain ILS Management has been launched by two well-known industry executives, as a new independent insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment manager with a focus on sustainability and environmental, social, governance (ESG) opportunities within ILS and reinsurance.

Paschal Books, formerly of AlphaCat Managers, and Justin Hull, formerly of Aspen Capital Management, are the two industry executives in question, with the pair teaming up to launch this new ILS fund management venture.

Sustain ILS Management will seek to deliver sustainability and insurance-linked returns to its investor base, through allocating capital to insurance and reinsurance opportunities that are considered ESG positive or appropriate.

The new independent ILS fund manager is in start-up mode, establishing the company and laying the groundwork to be able to begin its operations at this time.

With two experienced executives with significant ILS market expertise launching the venture as co-founders, Sustain ILS Management should have access to sources of both capital and risk, the two prerequisites for getting an ILS business up and running.

Paschal Brooks had worked at Bermuda headquartered ILS fund manager AlphaCat Managers since 2011, prior to which he worked at Goldman Sachs and Alleghany.

Brooks’ most recent role was as the CEO of AlphaCat Capital Inc., having taken on leadership for the AlphaCat operations not long after AIG acquired its former owner Validus.

Justin Hull most recently held the roles of Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Aspen Capital Management, the third-party capital focused unit of the Aspen insurance and reinsurance group.

Hull joined Aspen Capital Markets to work on ILS related initiatives back in 2013, prior to which he worked at reinsurance firm PartnerRe as an Insurance Linked Securities Trader for four years and before that at investment bank Citi focused on Special Situations.

Sustain ILS Management will position itself as a sustainable asset manager exclusively focused on insurance-linked securities investments.

The company will combine traditional reinsurance underwriting processes with an ESG investment framework that features a special emphasis on understanding climate-related risk.

Sustain will aim to build resilient portfolios of property catastrophe and natural event exposed risk, that it believes will offer its investors an attractive risk-adjusted return, as well as portfolio diversification benefits.

In addition, Sustain aims to undertake its own operations in a sustainable manner, while also committing to working with its trading partners and service providers to improve their operations.

The co-founders of Sustain ILS, Brooks and Hull, told Artemis, “We are excited to announce the launch of Sustain ILS Management, a new stage of evolution in the insurance-linked securities market.

“We are building responsible investment principles into our core operations and portfolio construction processes in order to enhance returns. We look forward to listening to and sharing insights with our clients and trading partners in order to improve sustainability across the insurance industry.”

Through the use of an ESG focused risk selection and allocation strategy, Sustain hopes to develop portfolios of risk that can outperform, by selectively working with ceding companies that embrace ESG and have a focus on understanding climate risk, it seems.

Sustain ILS Management continues to build out its start-up operations, while aiming to be active in capital deployment at the January 1 2023 reinsurance renewals and is actively looking to introduce its business to potential strategic partners at this time.