Legal & General Partnering With Blackstone For Private Credit
The insurer’s annuity and asset management businesses will leverage Blackstone’s private credit origination platform to provide clients with diversified investment-grade assets.
Insurer Legal & General Group PLC and Blackstone Inc. announced Thursday a strategic partnership to give L&G clients access to Blackstone’s private credit funds.
London-based L&G’s 92-billion-pound ($122.5 billion) annuities business will leverage Blackstone’s private credit origination platform to provide clients with diversified investment-grade assets. The insurer, one of the largest pension risk transfer providers in the U.K., will also invest up to 10% of its anticipated new business flows in its annuities business.
The asset management business of L&G, which manages 1.1 trillion pounds ($1.4 billion) in assets, will also develop public/private credit solutions that combine its own active fixed-income capabilities with Blackstone’s credit offerings.
L&G expects these offerings to help accelerate its plans to expand into the global wealth and investment wholesaling businesses.
“Our partnership with Blackstone will further cement our market leading position in pension risk transfer, and enable us to address growing demand for public-private hybrid investment products,” said António Simões, L&G’s group CEO, in a statement. “L&G will benefit from a more diverse pipeline of assets for our annuity book, and growth in asset management as we develop more sophisticated investment solutions for clients around the world.”
Blackstone’s credit platform, Blackstone Credit and Insurance, manages $465 billion in assets. BXCI currently manages $237 billion in third-party insurance assets, as of March 31.
“We believe this partnership shows the best of what Blackstone can offer to our insurance company clients,” said Philip Sherrill, global head of insurance at Blackstone, in a statement. “The breadth of our capabilities allows us to support our partners across their businesses—originating assets, working together to identify investment opportunities, and designing products that meet the needs of both institutional clients and individual investors.”
BXCI invests in private, investment grade credit, asset-based loans, public, investment grade and high-yield credit, sustainable resources, infrastructure debt, collateralized loan obligations, direct lending and opportunistic credit.
Legal & General’s U.S. pension risk transfer business was bolstered earlier this year by a 400-million-pound investment from Japanese insurer Meiji Yasuda after the latter purchased L&G’s U.S. insurance business.
According to a December 2024 report from L&G, it expects 2025 to be its largest year yet for PRT volume in the U.S. and Canada, with plans to write 10.5 billion pounds worth of PRT volume in the U.K. and another 2.1 billion pounds globally.
L&G had previously estimated 2024 PRT volume in the U.S. to exceed $50 billion.
Large alternative investment managers are increasingly acquiring insurance and annuity companies and also increasingly managing assets for insurers, as these investors’ long-duration portfolios and low legacy allocations to alts make them ripe for asset managers to attract inflows at a time when fundraising from traditional clients like pension funds and endowments has slowed down.
Apollo Global Management’s Athene business is one of the most notable annuity providers. KKR fully acquired annuity and insurance provider Global Atlantic in 2023, and Blue Owl Capital is expanding its insurance offerings through its 2024 acquisition of Kuvare. Ares Management has announced plans to significantly grow its annuity business, Aspida Holdings Ltd.
Insurers, especially life and annuity providers, are also increasingly finding a role for alternative investments, like private equity and private credit, in their portfolios as they diversify away from asset allocations that have traditionally been fixed-income heavy.
According to Goldman Sachs Asset Management, 62% of insurance investors plan to increase their private markets allocations this year. According to Mercer, only 26% of insurer respondents to its 2024 global insurance investment survey do not or do not plan to invest in private markets, with the most common reasons being liquidity concerns, resource constraints and the complexity of manager selection.
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Cetera Advisors Names Richard Vogel as Community Leader
Richard Vogel
Cetera Advisors named Richard Vogel as community leader. Vogel will lead initiatives to help Cetera advisers pursue meaningful growth opportunities, according to the firm.
Vogel brings more than 20 years of financial services experience to Cetera, including broad asset management and broker/dealer work. Vogel most recently led an adviser team at Ameriprise Financial Services. He previously held leadership roles at Lincoln Financial Group, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.
“Rich’s management and leadership styles are great cultural fits with Cetera, and his experience with both asset management and broker-dealers means he understands how Cetera and our advisers do business, end to end,” said Tom Halloran, Cetera’s president and CEO, in a statement. “Rich shares Cetera’s commitment to ‘making the big feel small,’ which includes staying in front of our advisers to help ensure they’re leveraging all our growth-oriented service offerings and our dedicated support teams because that’s all key to having the best adviser experience possible.”
FTI Hires Luke Shane
Luke Shane
FTI Consulting hired Luke Shane as a managing director of its financial services practice, which falls within the firm’s strategic communications segment. Shane will focus on providing clients with communications strategies, issues management, media relations and reputation management. He will also assist C-suite executives with navigating evolving regulatory pressures, as well as political and financial risks in complex operating environments around the globe.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Luke to FTI Consulting, where he will play a key leadership role on our Financial Services team in New York,” said Josh Drobnyk, FTI’s Americas head of financial services for the strategic communications segment, in a statement. “Luke brings an incredible breadth of experience to our team, and his expertise will be immensely valuable to our financial services clients as they prepare for and respond to a growing number of business-critical challenges within the industry.”
Shane brings almost 15 years of experience assisting global financial institutions during disruptive and transformative periods. Before joining FTI, he served as head of communications for New York Life Investments. Earlier in his career, he served in communications roles for Manulife, Manulife Investment Management and Black Rock.
Dechert Adds Robert Shapiro to DC Office
Robert Shapiro
Dechert LLP has added Robert Shapiro as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office. Shapiro will be part of the financial services practice group, with a client base that includes large asset managers and institutional sponsors.
Shapiro joins Dechert from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he served as assistant chief counsel in the division of investment management. Before the SEC, he worked both in private practice and in-house at a large asset manager. Shapiro has expertise in regulatory areas such as digital assets, robo-advisers and anti-money laundering, as well as advisory and compliance.
“As we continue to expand our specialized, best-in-class financial services offerings, Robert’s extensive regulatory expertise is a tremendous asset to the firm,” said Mark Thierfelder, Dechert’s co-chair, in a statement. “His broad background and deep skillset will enable us to provide even more comprehensive legal services to our clients.”
Northern Trust Names Head of International and Responsible Investing
Pedro Guazo
Northern Trust Asset Management appointed Pedro Guazo as head of international and responsible investing, effective mid-August. Guazo will be based in London, joining Northern Trust’s global leadership team and reporting to President Daniel Gamba.
Guazo will also become CEO of Northern Trust Global Investments Ltd., subject to regulatory approvals. He will have dual roles leading the asset manager’s business in Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, as well as its global responsible investing platform.
Guazo brings 30 years of experience as an investor and business leader for global financial institutions in Europe and North America. Most recently, he served as CEO for the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund’s Office of Investment Management.
“Pedro’s experience in leading large and complex organizations around the globe, his successful track record managing large pools of assets and his extensive responsible investing background make him perfectly suited to lead our business in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific, and further strengthen the solutions we provide to clients,” Gamba said in a statement.
Regional Plan Consultants join TRA
Dominic Trupiano and Sean Duncan have joined the Retirement Advantage Inc. as regional plan consultants.
“We’re excited to welcome these proven professionals to our sales team,” said Darin Erdmann, Retirement Advantage’s director of sales and distribution, in a statement. “Their leadership and insight will enhance the support we provide to our adviser partners and plan sponsors.”
Trupiano will cover Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma and brings 10 years of experience as a senior leader in institutional retirement plan consulting. Most recently, he was a vice president of retirement plan consulting at OneDigital Investment Advisors, where he led a consulting group overseeing approximately $5.5 billion in plan assets.
Duncan will work as a consultant for the Mid-Atlantic territory, encompassing D.C., Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. He brings more than 25 years of experience in retirement plan consulting, most recently as regional vice president at Equitable. There, he led sales and client management for the Western U.S. and launched a coaching academy for advisers.
Orion Chooses Valli Nachiappan as CTO
Valli Nachiappan
Orion Advisor Solutions has chosen Valli Nachiappan as its next chief technology officer, serving on the company’s senior leadership team. Nachiappan will lead the execution of Orion’s technology strategy, aiming to further modernize its architecture and accelerate the delivery of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence-powered solutions for advisers and clients. She will report to Reed Colley, president of Orion Advisor Technology.
Nachiappan brings more than two decades of technology experience, most recently as vice president of engineering at Zendesk, where she led global, product-focused teams and spearheaded artificial intelligence innovations. She previously held senior leadership positions at Zaplabs and Yapstone, driving digital solutions and developing reusable, secure multi-platform applications.
“I’m excited to drive Orion’s technology strategy forward by leveraging emerging technologies, harnessing the power of data and AI, and building a secure, scalable platform that keeps us ahead of industry trends and delivers lasting value to our clients,” Nachiappan said in a statement.
PenChecks Taps Director of Institutional Investigations
Rob Klobukowski
PenChecks Trust Co. of America announced the appointment of Rob Klobukowski as director of institutional integrations. In the newly created role, Klobukowski will focus on building scalable integration solutions for institutions, third-party administrators, solution providers and recordkeepers.
Klobukowski brings to PenChecks more than 20 years of information technology and retirement industry leadership experience. He last worked at TPS Group, where he automated vendor data integrations and led cross-functional IT strategies across several locations. Klobukowski’s experience lies in data integration, workflow automation and retirement plan infrastructure.
“We’re excited to welcome Rob to the team,” said PenChecks President and CEO Spiro Preovolos in a statement. “Our success has always been rooted in listening, collaborating, and investing in people who share our commitment to client outcomes. Rob brings a valued ability to connect technology and business strategy in ways that will help our clients and company continue to grow.”
