Brookfield quits insurer’s board in dispute over Josh Harris’s enterprise

An essential monetary backer of billionaire Josh Harris’s new asset administration enterprise has acquired a uncommon public rebuke from Brookfield Asset Administration, which complained that AEL, a life insurance coverage firm, shouldn’t be committing funds to a start-up.

Shares of the Iowa-based annuities vendor plunged 21 per cent after Brookfield, its largest shareholder, expressed dissatisfaction with the funding in a automobile Harris launched earlier this 12 months after leaving Apollo World Administration in a succession dispute.

Saying his resignation from AEL’s board, Brookfield’s chief funding officer Sachin Shah wrote: “It’s clear primarily based on latest occasions that there was a basic change within the strategic route of [AEL].”

“As beforehand communicated, neither I nor Brookfield Reinsurance can assist this modification in technique as being in the most effective pursuits of the corporate, its policyholders or its shareholders,” Shah added, in a letter filed on Tuesday.

Executives at Brookfield objected to AEL, whose full title is the American Fairness Funding Life Holding firm, utilizing its assets to again Harris’s 26North Companions, a enterprise they regard as a brand new and unproven funding agency, an individual acquainted with the matter mentioned.

In a press release to the FT, AEL rejected these criticisms, saying the 26North funding was “much like preparations we now have with a number of different asset managers which are producing worth”, and “in line with our . . . technique which we first introduced in October 2020”.

“We’re additionally disillusioned with Brookfield’s determination to not instantly appoint a brand new director,” the corporate added.

AEL chief government Anant Bhalla introduced a “modest” funding in 26North throughout an earnings name on Tuesday, talking of Harris, an Apollo co-founder, as “one of many foremost non-public fairness buyers in his technology”.

“AEL hopes to supply future belongings from . . . 26North,” he mentioned. “[It has] numerous expertise flocking to it.”

Brookfield first took a stake in AEL in 2020, shortly after the insurer fended off an unsolicited takeover bid from Apollo’s annuities affiliate Athene Holding. The Canadian group additionally created a reinsurance affiliate to initially handle $5bn of the Iowa firm’s annuity liabilities, and in the present day owns 18 per cent of the insurer.

AEL has in recent times been investing extra aggressively in non-public belongings at a time when different funding managers comparable to Apollo, Blackstone, KKR and Carlyle have joined forces with insurance coverage firms as a solution to construct their credit score investing items.

AEL on Monday introduced 18 per cent of its funding portfolio is now deployed in “higher-yielding privately-sourced belongings”. Previous to Tuesday’s plunge, the corporate’s shares had been up almost a tenth for the 12 months.

Brookfield mentioned it was additionally invoking a contractual proper to drive the insurer to file paperwork that will enable the Canadian group to promote almost 60 per cent of its AEL inventory.

Harris resigned from the Apollo board earlier this 12 months after a 30-year profession on the group. He had been a contender to switch Leon Black as CEO final 12 months however the job went to Marc Rowan, the architect of the corporate’s insurance coverage ventures.

Representatives for 26North, Harris and Brookfield declined to remark.