Beat Capital Partners to launch Convergence credit insurance arm

Beat Capital Partners has announced it is planning to launch Convergence, a specialty and technology-enabled credit non-payment insurance underwriter.

With an initial focus on Europe and North America, the business is expected to underwrite through a Lloyd’s consortium, led by Beat Syndicate 4242, with Stephen Pike as CEO and founder.

Convergence will step into the market to meet the growing and largely unaddressed need for portfolio solutions among banks and global financial institutions, specifically targeting the insurance of credit risk portfolios, Beat said.

Its approach will leverage a combination of technology and data analytics, said the insurance-specialised long duration investor, powered by a proprietary algorithmic modelling platform developed in partnership with University College London.

Beat said the platform would enable Convergence to “swiftly integrate, enhance, and utilise the extensive data provided by financial institutions”, to serve a broad spectrum of opportunities in economic risk management.

Pike brings 20 years of credit experience and previously held the role of global head of credit and political risk (CPR) at re/insurer Canopius, having joined that team in 2017, developing a portfolio credit team.

Before that, Pike was co-head of trade finance at ED&F MAN Capital Markets where he established the business’s global trade finance business.

He started his career at investment firm Merrill Lynch, going on to be a portfolio analyst at Cyrus Capital, a credit special situations fund.

Pike will be joined by Jeremy Hatchuel as co-founder and partner.

He brings 10 years of quantitative expertise at the intersection of the capital markets and insurance, starting his career as an insurance linked securities structurer at Aon Securities and later joining the Canopius CPR team to lead its portfolio solutions function.

Bringing a cognitive science focus, Hatchuel conducted research in computational neuroscience at UCL.

“Convergence will be launched to take advantage of the many opportunities available in the CPR market. It is a complex sector and the team has a wealth of experience,” Pike said.

“We will be data driven and have developed a proprietary model with UCL which will provide scalable solutions for our clients. Our purpose-built technology, industry knowledge and understanding of individual clients will give us a market leading position,” he added.

John Cavanagh, chairman of Beat, said: “Beat is always looking for fresh and innovative insurance business ideas led by entrepreneurs with extensive knowledge and expertise in their field.

“Stephen stood out in this class due to his depth of client understanding and unique focus on bringing the best-in-class technology to launch a truly differentiated business in the credit insurance market. We look forward to working with them when they get started and to supporting their innovation,” he added.