Reinsurance is set to grow

Reinsurance is set to grow

At various points over the past decade, we have considered expanding our asset management business to include reinsuring obligations related to long-term annuities, as the capital is of long duration and our investing skills can add value in the investing of the capital. We previously had two misgivings: the first was our strong belief that interest rates might decline, which made it unattractive to lock in long-dated liabilities at high interest rates. The second was the fact that much of the capital from reinsurance activities would need to be invested in credit instruments, and we were concerned that our credit platform was not sufficiently large to take on the scale of capital involved.

Fast forward to 2020: interest rates globally have dropped to near zero, and while rates could go negative, in our view the odds do not favor that for any significant length of time. As a result, we believe the risk involved in reinsuring long-tail liabilities is the lowest it has ever been. Furthermore, our recent partnership with Oaktree has significantly added to the scale of our credit capabilities. Together, these developments have meaningfully changed the nature of the opportunity for us.

Our first step in preparing for this opportunity was to establish our reinsurance business, and we have received a number of licenses over the past few years. The ownership of the business and its operational oversight will be conducted through our newly created Bermuda company for this purpose called Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners (BAM Reinsurance).

As a next step in building the business, we announced a strategic partnership with American Equity Investment Life (AEL) under which BAM Reinsurance will reinsure annuity policies. We have agreed to take on $5 billion of existing policies in our reinsurance company and take an additional $5 billion of future policies as they are written. The simple story is that we will receive up to $10 billion of cash, invest those funds in our alternatives and income-oriented investment strategies and, if we can out-earn the rates we pay on the liabilities, we will do very well.

In order to set up this business for the long term but continue to have this reinsurance entity benefit from everything that exists at overall Brookfield Asset Management Inc., we are planning to replicate the success we have had pairing corporations and partnerships for each of our businesses. Thus, we will split off to all shareholders of Brookfield Asset Management a fractional share of Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners. Each new whole share of BAM Reinsurance, once assembled from fractional shares on distribution to you, will be equivalent in value to a current BAM Class A share. For those of you who follow our listed partnerships, you will know that we have done comparable distributions of “paired” securities in the past. In all cases, the “paired” corporate shares have traded in tandem with the partnership units, thanks to their equivalent distributions and exchange features.

Subject to the receipt of regulatory approvals, we plan to complete the distribution of BAM Reinsurance shares in the first half of 2021. The distribution will amount to a dividend of approximately $500 million of capital, or approximately a $0.33 for each BAM share you own.

Bruce Flatt

Chief Executive Officer

Brookfield Asset Management Inc.

November 12, 2020

Postscript

Insurance companies sell contracts not "products". Products are manufactured goods. Insurance companies like the term product as a sales gimmick to make it seem as though it is a solid object. These contracts are agreements to assume risks. The insurance company gets regular payments for this risk. If there is a claim they have lawyers on staff to negotiate low pay, slow pay, or no pay on claims. The claim language is twisted in legal terms so avoidance of payment or redefining what the contract specifies as payment can be manipulated by the insurance company.

Brookfield is wise to get into this business. Buffet saw an insurance company as a basis for his empire too. It's free money to invest with inflation, actuaries, and lawyers on the side of the insurance company.