Aspen kicks off IPO valuing firm at $2.85bn
Aspen Group has begun its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO), with up to $340m of shares to be sold by owner Apollo Global.
Bermuda-based Aspen, which first announced plans for an IPO in 2023, said it would be selling 11 million shares and hoped they would be listed for between $39 and $41 a share on the New York Stock Exchange.
The offering values the specialty re/insurer at $2.85 billion. Apollo bought the company for $2.6 billion in 2019. After the IPO, Apollo will continue to hold an 86.7% stake.
The IPO comes as stock markets have largely recovered from the turmoil of the announcement of the Trump Administration’s tariffs on April 2, which sent insurance shares plunging along with the rest of the markets.
Aspen was publicly traded until 2019 but had struggled after several years of poor results. Under the ownership of Apollo – which also owns life reinsurance giant Athene – Aspen improved results with veteran chief executive officer Mark Cloutier (pictured) at the helm.
In 2024, the company turned in a $486 million profit, down from $535 million in 2023 as catastrophes mounted. Gross written premiums rose to $4.6 billion from $3.97 billion.
Aspen released its first-quarter results for 2025 at the same time as today’s IPO announcement. In line with many other Bermuda re/insurers affected by January’s Los Angeles wildfires, its net income plunged to $19.9 million from $98.2 million, while operating income halved to $50.4 million from $103.4 million.
Aspen incurred $91.4 million worth of catastrophe losses in the quarter, up from $32.4 million in 2024. Cloutier had previously said the wildfires would cause $50 million to $75 million in losses.
Gross written premium improved to $1.29 billion from $1.23 billion while the company’s underwriting income was $27.2 million, down from $89.5 million.
Its combined ratio increased to 96.1% from 86.6%. That change was largely due to the rise in catastrophe losses, which rose from 4.9% to 13%.
Excluding catastrophe losses, the accident-year loss ratio improved slightly to 51.8% from 52.6%.
Investment income was virtually unchanged at $75.9 million but fee income from its third-party capital business jumped to $45.6 million from $33.6 million.
Total shareholders’ equity was $3.19 billion compared with $3.372 billion in the prior-year period. The reduction was due to the company’s redemption of all of its 5.95% preference shares valued at $275 million.
In the IPO, Apollo has granted its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.65 million ordinary shares.
The shares will be listed under the ticker symbol AHL.
Did you get value from this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
