AIG names international CIO as rate cut challenge looms
US insurance firm AIG has appointed a new chief investment officer for international following the departure of longstanding incumbent Guillermo Donadini earlier this year.
Jeremy Baldwin took up the London-based role on August 14, overseeing Asia Pacific (including Japan), as well as Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Latin America.
He oversees some $26 billion of assets and reports to Patrick Boisvert, CIO for AIG, which had total invested assets of $95.5 billion as of June 30. The firm declined to say how much Asia Pacific accounted for in the total.
AIG
Baldwin will also retain his responsibilities as chair of trustees and chair of the investment committee for AIG’s UK pension plans.
He has been with AIG for nearly 23 years and his previous role was EMEA CIO from May 2015.
He has also held various roles within the investment team including co-head of public credit research, and board director of AIG Asset Management Europe.
Donadini worked with AIG for around 27 years across two stints in various CIO roles, most recently from 2013 to this year and previously from 1994 to 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In between those periods, he worked at MetLife.
RATE CUT CHALLENGE
Baldwin will need to steer AIG’s international asset portfolio through a period of expected interest rate cuts in coming years.
Other insurers – such as AIA, Chubb Life, Income Insurance and Sequis Life – are adjusting their outlook and/or portfolios in anticipation of monetary easing by central banks.
AIG acknowledged the challenges in its 2023 annual report, published in April this year, particularly in light of regulatory capital requirements.
It said “fluctuations in interest rates may expose us to the risk of increases in certain statutory reserve requirements that are based on formulas or models that consider interest rates, which would reduce statutory capital, and increases in capital requirements and the amount of assets we must maintain to support statutory reserves, which would reduce surplus.”
PARTNERING BLACKROCK, BLACKSTONE
AIG will rely on the expertise of its external investment managers to help.
Most of the firm’s investment assets are managed by private market investment firm Blackstone and fund management giant BlackRock, said the insurer’s 2023 annual report.
Under a strategic partnership, BlackRock manages up to $60 billion of AIG’s global investment portfolio and provides investment management and risk analytics technology via its Aladdin platform.
Baldwin’s appointment comes amid senior insurance investment personnel changes in Asia in recent months.
They include the departures of Hong Kong-based FWD group CIO Andreas Hoffmann and chief risk officer Niall Grady (to Sun Life), and of Gerald Posthuma as Manulife's Asia CIO, who has been replaced by former deputy CIO Calvin Yip.