Ariel Re has become the first Lloyd’s business to become a signatory of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments (SBAI).
The SBAI is a non-profit alliance of allocators and asset managers supported by over 250 institutional investors and investment managers, which has created an Alternative Investment Standards framework.
However, its website claims it is supported by over 150 asset manager signatories with approximately $2tn in AUM and over 90 institutional investors responsible for $4tn in assets. It was established in 2008 as the Hedge Funds Standards Board, rebranding to its current name in 2017
Following a review this year, the SBAI assessed that the Lloyd’s Market Oversight Framework aligns with its own high governance and fiduciary standards and opened the door for managing agents to become signatories to the Alternative Investment Standards.
Tim Shreeve, head of platform development at Ariel Re, said: “As a Lloyd’s-centric reinsurance group that uses alternative sources of capital, we are delighted that the SBAI has accepted Ariel Re’s application. The governance and disclosure standards at Lloyd’s align well with the SBAI’s standards designed for alternative investment management.”
He added: “We believe that our Signatory membership highlights Lloyd’s as an excellent place for investors to make capital allocations to insurance risk. It demonstrates that Lloyd’s has embedded fiduciary safeguards and is a compelling alternative to ILS investment manager fund structures.”
The firm, which operates through Lloyd’s, will have a regulated entity known as Ariel Re Managing Agency (ARMA) under the Lloyd’s Market Oversight Framework once approved.
A few months ago, Ariel Re said that the reinsurance industry needed to rebuild its confidence after a challenging period during which returns were ‘inadequate’.
