A veteran of the Bermuda insurance market has been named chief financial officer at Florida-based FG Financial Group Inc.

Hassan Baqar is to succeed John Hill, one of the founders of the company, in the CFO position.

The company said Mr Baqar joins FG Financial with more than 20 years of experience in financial services with considerable experience in the reinsurance and special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) industries.

Among his previous positions, Mr Baqar served as chief financial officer of Bermuda-based Insurance Income Strategies Ltd.

Larry Swets, chief executive officer of FG Financial, said: “We are extremely excited to announce Hassan Baqar as our new chief financial officer.

“Hassan brings a wealth of valuable knowledge to this role including extensive reinsurance and SPAC experience. I have worked with Hassan directly for many years and look forward to FG Financial benefiting from his broad experience and business acumen.”

FG Financial Group, based in St Petersburg, said it is a reinsurance and investment management holding company focused on opportunistic collateralised and loss capped reinsurance, while allocating capital to SPAC and SPAC sponsor-related businesses. The company’s principal business operations are conducted through its subsidiaries and affiliates.