Railway Pension Investments Limited (RPMI Railpen), the dedicated investment manager that looks after the pension fund for UK railway’s workers, has hired a sector specialist in insurance-linked securities (ILS) from Willis Towers Watson (WTW) as an investment manager.
James Turner has joined RPMI Railpen as an Investment Manager at the end of October, the organisation confirmed to us.
Turner was most recently at insurance and reinsurance broking specialist and consultancy Willis Towers Watson (WTW), where he worked as a consultant with a particular focus on insurance-linked securities (ILS) investments and ILS funds.
RPMI Railpen began allocating to ILS funds in 2017, making an investment in funds managed by Credit Suisse Insurance-Linked Strategies.
That allocation was around UK £184 million in size towards the end of 2017 and although we understand this initial allocation faced some losses from global catastrophe events that struck the reinsurance market, by the end of 2018 RPMI Railpen reported its overall allocation to Credit Suisse ILS funds had almost doubled to £362.35 million, which is roughly 1.4% of its available assets.
Turner worked as an Investment Consultant at WTW for more than six years, researching hedge fund and related strategies, with insurance-linked strategies a key focus.
As a result, Turner will have a good view of the range of available ILS and reinsurance linked investment strategies in the market and will be able to help RPMI Railpen manage and perhaps expand the pension funds allocation to the ILS asset class.
RPMI Railpen is one of the pension funds and major ILS investors we track in our directories here.
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