Specialist Lloyd’s of London third party managing agent and specialist MGA investor, Asta, has announced a new investment in London and Dubai reinsurance MGA, Arma Underwriting Limited.
Backed by Lloyd’s of London market capacity, Arma is designed to underwrite a wide spectrum of business lines and will look to support local Middle East insurers by offering multi-class reinsurance capacity.
Asta will take a minority equity stake in the new MGA, supporting the entities infrastructure, which includes finance and IT, and has ultimately agreed to a transaction to finance the development of Arma.
Michael Rafter has been named as Chief Executive officer (CEO) of the new MGA and will have an office in the Dubai International Finance Centre, led by Senior Executive Officer, Hajar Fadel. According to an announcement former AIG President and former CEO of Oman Insurance Company, Patrick Choffel, along with Julian Tighe, CEO of Asta and Simon Norton, Director of Underwriting, will join the Arma board.
“I am proud of Asta’s investment in Arma, which is going to actively contribute to the continued development of reinsurance capability in the Middle East. Asta is committed to supporting innovative MGAs like Arma as they develop new lines of business not currently seen by the market. To facilitate this, Asta is deploying its considerable skill base and track record of incubating Lloyd’s syndicates and MGAs to provide high quality business and regulatory support, combined with investment, to start up MGAs. The success of our efforts so far is driving a very healthy pipeline of interest from successful underwriting teams, keen to set up their own insurance enterprise,” said Tighe.
While Rafter added; “The Arma team will comprise individuals who have been at the forefront of reinsurance in the Middle East for many years. We are committed to the development of the reinsurance market in the region, and we will quickly be adding real value to our brokers and insurer clients. Asta’s investment in us and the high quality infrastructure they have put around our business, is allowing us to focus our energies on the development of our underwriting operations and the needs of our clients.”
The new MGA has received ‘in principle’ approval from the Dubai Financial Services Authority, and the deal still requires approval from Lloyd’s and the Dubai International Financial Centre.
