CAC Specialty Announces Financial Sponsors Group

CAC Specialty today announced its newly-formed Financial Sponsors Group (“FSG”), a dedicated team providing insurance and capital market solutions to the private equity community.

“We couldn’t be more excited to launch FSG,” said Mike Rice, CAC Specialty’s CEO. “We are fully committed to bringing together the best talent in the industry to serve our financial sponsor clients. We strive to make an impact for our clients through our ability to bring integrated insurance brokerage and investment banking disciplines to solve complicated client problems.”

FSG brings together seven interdisciplinary specialties: Sponsor Insurance, Portfolio Solutions, Transactional Insurance, Structured Solutions, Private Debt Financing, Special Situations, and Data and Analytics.

“Our clients are interested in risk transfer regardless of whether it is placed in traditional or alternative risk capital markets,” said Chief Revenue Officer David Payne. “CAC is unencumbered by legacy structures that get in the way of bringing the full paradigm of risk transfer to clients. We are transforming the industry.”

Over the past several months, CAC Specialty has made key hires in its Financial Sponsors Group to serve clients with top talent in each of these areas.

Rachel Beck has joined CAC Specialty to lead the Sponsor Insurance segment. Rachel has years of experience assisting financial sponsors in the placement of general partnerships’ management liability insurance as well as for their portfolio companies. Beck has a strong actuarial background and joins CAC Specialty from JLT Specialty. Prior to JLT, she spent nine years at AIG and Willis.

André Eichenholtz will lead CAC Specialty’s Portfolio Solutions Group, which is focused on providing diligence and placement services to financial sponsors as well as creating portfolio efficiencies for their portfolio company investments. Eichenholtz has a long history of experience in this sector, serving in various leadership roles in the industry.

CAC Specialty’s Transactional Liability Practice is led by Michael Wakefield and places representation and warranty, tax, and contingent risk insurance for private equity and corporate clients. Wakefield is joined by David Barnes, with whom he previously co-led the transactional insurance practice at McGriff insurance. Wakefield and Barnes both previously practiced law at King & Spalding, an AmLaw top 25 law firm, and bring years of litigation and M&A transactional experience for the benefit of CAC’s clients.

Using structuring expertise and placement capabilities across the spectrum of insurance and alternative capital markets, CAC Specialty’s Structured Solutions team creates bespoke solutions for facilitating capital efficiency and the transferring of unique and complex risks. Structured Solutions will continue to be led by Jack Leventhal and Bruce Denson Jr. Structured Solutions significantly expand the scope of risk transfer that CAC Specialty can bring to its clients.

Vince Mutolo joins CAC Specialty to lead the offering of Private Financing solutions to its sponsor clients. Mutolo was recently Senior Managing Director of Teneo Capital, and previously was Co-Head of Private Placements at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. CAC’s investment banking structuring capability is unique in the insurance brokerage industry and allows CAC Specialty to serve a much broader set of client needs in the mergers & acquisitions environment.

Jason Horwitz leads CAC’s Special Situations Group (SSG). SSG makes CAC Specialty the only broker with a dedicated team of restructuring professionals – former attorneys, bankers, consultants and underwriters – focused solely on insurance solutions for the distressed and workout community.

Data and Analytics is a key value proposition for the Financial Sponsors Group. Our clients demand data and insight in order to make company-specific decisions or decisions for a broader investment portfolio. Kamini Patel and Michelle Lam will lead the group from the insurance and investment banking side respectively.