At Laz Partners, we have been observing a shift in how insurers and asset managers are approaching private assets, which in turn is creating a heightened need and demand for certain skills, as well as providing a clearer feel for upcoming & expected hiring demand from our clients in the coming months.
As regulators turn greater attention to the structures that once let insurers hold private credit and securitisation with lighter capital treatment, capital charge rules are tightening in Bermuda, and increasingly other reinsurance domiciles such as Cayman, and reporting requirements on private securitisation are becoming more strict. Cayman alone has seen reinsurance assets grow more than fourfold since 2020, from $23 billion to over $100 billion. Alongside this, spreads have compressed and the relative value private assets offered a few years ago has narrowed.
In this environment, meeting return targets takes a combination of patience and discipline, and increasingly also requires the ability to build a structure rather than simply "buy" an exposure. Capital solutions structuring, fund finance, rated notes and carefully designed tranching appear to be coming part of the standard toolkit rather than a specialist or, "add-on".
This is creating elevated demand for people who can sophisticatedly pair their investment judgement with practical structuring expertise, professionals who truly understand both the asset and the capital treatment that sits behind it.
