Aspen Capital Markets fee income grew 25% to $169m, as AUM hit $2.2bn in 2024

Aspen Capital Markets, the third-party, ILS and alternative reinsurance capital management unit of global re/insurer Aspen, has continued to expand its business throughout 2024, with assets under management reaching a new high of $2.2 billion and fee income earned for the year rising by 25%.

The companies multi-line of business approach to insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance investments has been driving significant incremental income and synergies for Aspen in recent years.

With a specialism in areas such as casualty ILS, Aspen has been one of the pioneers enabling third-party capital investors to access returns from longer-tailed reinsurance business.

With now $2.2 billion in assets under management, the Aspen Capital Markets Team has grown its firepower by roughly 30% in just one year, having reached $1.7 billion by the end of 2023.

Highlighting the importance of the third-party capital activities, Aspen CEO Mark Cloutier said, “In a year challenged by several industry-wide major loss events, these results demonstrate how Aspen’s expert and disciplined underwriting, consistent investment performance and a growing contribution from Aspen Capital Markets are enabling us to successfully deliver against our strategy, resulting in an operating return on average equity of 19.4%.”

Christian Dunleavy, Group President of Aspen, also highlighted the third-party capital activity in his comments, “For the twelve months ended December 31, 2024, we saw gross written premiums grow by 16.2% to $4.6 billion. Aspen Capital Markets generated fee income of $169 million, an increase of 24.8%, while net investment income grew 15.3% to $318 million. The resulting operating income of $433 million represents an increase of 17.7% over the prior year. All of these results reinforce our core strategies and underscore the relevance and importance of our platforms, products, and service offerings in their respective markets.

“Alongside the strong, profitable growth we have achieved in 2024, we have maintained excellent underwriting performance, with an adjusted combined ratio of 86.8% and adjusted underwriting income increasing by 7.2% to $381 million. This performance is testament to our proactive portfolio construction, our distribution network and Aspen’s ability to nimbly allocate risk across our platforms, enhanced by Aspen Capital Markets, in response to the needs of our customers. Underpinned by our balance sheet strength, we are well placed to grow where we see opportunity, while delivering sustainable underwriting profitability for our shareholders.”

Growth in assets under management drives higher fee income for Aspen and the company has consistently and steadily increased the contribution of the Aspen Capital Markets unit overtime.

In April 2024, Aspen launched a partnership with asset manager PIMCO, on Pando Re Ltd., a Bermuda-based, casualty focused collateralised re/insurer that act as a reinsurance sidecar and which is expected to drive further growth of third-party capital and fee income for Aspen Capital Markets.

Aspen also disclosed its California wildfire loss estimate in its results statement, saying that it anticipates a $50 million to $75 million impact net of reinsurance and reinstatement premiums, which it has based on an industry loss in the $35 billion to $45 billion range.

Aspen Capital Markets is just one of the dedicated insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers, and reinsurers offering ILS-style investment opportunities, listed in our Insurance-Linked Securities Investment Managers & Funds Directory.