A top Blackstone Group executive told insurance sector watchers Wednesday that private equity firms can help life and annuity issuers earn higher investment returns without adding to default risk.
Marrying private equity firms' investment origination abilities with the life and annuity issuers' hunger for high-grade, long-lived assets makes a lot of sense. said Jonathan Gray, president and chief operating officer at Blackstone. This is becoming a key driver of growth in private equity firms' involvement in the life and annuity sector.
Gray said private equity firms like Blackstone understand the need to create high-quality assets for their life and annuity clients.
"This is a really important industry," Gray said. "We want it to be financially sound."
Gray was speaking online at S&P Global Ratings' 38th annual insurance conference.
What It Means
S&P ratings affect life insurers' borrowing costs and their ability to sell products such as life insurance and annuities.
Conference attendees include investors, federal regulators, state regulators, investment bankers and others. Their perception of private equity firms' involvement in the life and annuity sector could affect who owns the insurers responsible for your clients' personal protection and retirement income planning arrangements, and the supply and cost of life and annuity products.
Company Types
The policyholders themselves own some insurers, which are known as mutual insurers or, in some cases, insurance cooperatives. Families or small groups of investors own many other "privately held" insurers.
Federal law defines insurers with many ordinary retail shareholders as being "publicly traded." Those insurers must meet a wide range of extra requirements, including requirements to post public quarterly and annual reports on their performance.
Private equity firms can be either privately held companies or publicly traded companies. Because federal law classifies private equity firms and their investor clients as large, sophisticated investors, the firms can invest in "private equity," or shares of stock unavailable to ordinary public investors.
Private equity firms can also invest in private bonds and other holdings beyond the reach of small investors.
The Private Equity Issue
New Financial Accounting Standards Board insurance and annuity obligation reporting rules are set to apply to publicly traded life insurers by the end of the year. Observers believe the new rules will make parts of publicly traded life insurers' earnings reports look much more volatile.
Some insurers believe that the new volatility will frighten retail investors, but that private equity owners will understand that the new volatility is mainly the result of the new accounting rules, not the result of a sudden change in the life insurers' finances.
Partly because of the looming rule change, many large insurers have rushed to sell part or all of their life and annuity operations to private equity firms.
