Moelis Establishes Insurance Banking Footprint
Insurance company coverage has been on firm's agenda for over a year, CEO says
January 15, 2010
Moelis & Co. announced its appointment of John Sipp as an insurance-focused managing director last Thursday, but the goal of covering insurance companies has been on the firm’s agenda for 18 months, says Kenneth Moelis, the firm's chief executive.
"Throughout the financial services sector, firms are rethinking their balance sheet, business model, strategy and how to be efficient with their asset base," Moelis tells IDD. "I think this is a time when people need high-quality, unconflicted and independent advice."
Moelis feels his firm's "unconflicted" characteristic will be vital for winning deal assignments from insurance companies because larger banks' balance sheets share some similarities with those of potential insurance clients.
"Many of the issues that insurance companies have or want to address with regards to their balance sheets are mimicked at the large financial conglomerates who want to advise them," he says. "Sharing portfolio positions or other similar balance sheet strategies creates an inherent conflict due to the firms' trading operations."
Sipp, who is based in Moelis & Co.'s New York office, was most recently head of insurance investment banking in the Americas at Credit Suisse. He came to the Swiss bank via its acquisition of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, which he joined in 1998 as a FIG managing director. Earlier in his career, Sipp worked for UBS and also spent 11 years on the FIG team at Goldman Sachs.
Hiring Sipp allowed Moelis to grow the trans-Atlantic financial institutions group his firm launched last year. Caroline Silver, previously vice chairman of European, Middle Eastern and African investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and global vice chairman of investment banking and head of European financial institutions and restructuring at Morgan Stanley, joined Moelis & Co.'s London office in October. During the summer, financials banker John Binnie became a New York-based managing director. Binnie was formerly head of diversified financials at Morgan Stanley and co-head of the banking and diversified financials group at Citigroup.
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