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Industry veteran McKeown to head Juniperus

Chris McKeown

Reinsurance veteran Chris McKeown will return to Bermuda to head up insurance asset manager, Juniperus Capital, the company has announced.Juniperus, which will be rebranded as Pillar Capital Management in the coming weeks, tapped the industry executive to be its CEO. Mr McKeown has extensive experience with reinsurance in Bermuda having set up two companies here, CIG Reinsurance Ltd in 2004 and New Castle Reinsurance in 2005. He has also held various positions with Ace Tempest Re, including president and CEO, from 1998 to 2002, and capitalised by investor funds managed by Citadel Investment Group LLC. Between the two companies, Mr McKeown and his team deployed over $1 billion of investor capital dedicated to the reinsurance market.Mr McKeown has most recently served as vice-chairman of North America Broking at Guy Carpenter.Aquiline Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm investing in financial services, acquired Juniperus in January to capture growing investor demand for insurance-linked securities. In April of this year, Marsh & McLennan Companies took a minority partnership stake in the company.“I am excited to lead Juniperus in our next phase of growth. The existing management team and I look forward to partnering with Aquiline, Marsh & McLennan Companies and investors to participate in the collateralised reinsurance and catastrophe insurance-linked securities market,” said Mr McKeown. “The collateralised reinsurance market has grown significantly since 2004, and Juniperus is well-positioned as an independent asset manager dedicated to reinsurance risk.”Mr McKeown will succeed Phil Lotz, who will remain with the company as executive chairman.Jeff Greenberg, chief executive of Aquiline, said: “Chris brings a unique blend of operating experience and underwriting expertise in the alternative reinsurance space. I believe he is ideally-suited to lead Juniperus. With Chris at the helm, we hope to create an industry leading platform to satisfy varying investor appetites to deploy assets in the reinsurance arena.”