19 September 2019ILS

Markel hires president for retrocessional ILS fund, Lodgepine

Markel has hired Brenton Slade as president of Lodgepine Capital Management, its retrocessional insurance linked securities (ILS) fund, based in Bermuda.

Slade joins from Hamilton Capital Partners, where he was a senior vice president, before which he was chief operating officer for the Horseshoe Group, leading global business operations. Between 2005 and 2013, he was a member of the executive committee and chief marketing and capital markets officer for Flagstone Reinsurance, responsible for capital market initiatives, including capital structure transactions and ILS, cat bond and sidecar businesses, as well as investor relations and firm-wide marketing.

Andrew Barnard, CEO of Lodgepine, said: “[Slade’s] experience in ILS, reinsurance and alternative investments will be important in helping Lodgepine develop as a significant institutional ILS asset manager.”

Slade said Lodgepine will complement Markel’s Nephila and State National capabilities. “Third-party capital will continue to play a major role in our industry and Markel has strategically positioned itself to be an industry leader in the critically important ILS market,” he added.

Markel recently launched Lodgepine, together with a reinsurance company, Lodgepine Re. Lodgepine’s initial product offering will be the Lodgepine Fund, a property catastrophe retrocessional investment fund ahead of the 2020 renewal period, which will provide investors with access to property catastrophe retrocession exposure via a single-entry point and platform.