Whittington UK has completed the final stage in its management-led acquisition by the Paraline, Skuld and Tawa consortium by announcing the re-branding of the company. Whittington UK will now be known as “Asta”.
Stephen Cane, the Asta CEO, said in announcing the new name: “The ownership change at Whittington UK was an important and crucial strategic step for our business and the metamorphosis is now complete with our re-launch as Asta.
“Asta is dedicated to helping to create and develop businesses with others. At the same time we have been steadily and successfully building our own business. The experienced and strong leadership team at Asta is backed by able and dedicated staff. And now, together with the broad experience, encouragement and financial support of our consortium partners, we are all looking forward to continuing to build an even stronger and more successful business.”
He added: “The business has grown from its run-off origins and successfully extended into a leading manager of active businesses. We are now the leading third party syndicate manager at Lloyd’s with responsibility for six syndicates with an aggregate capacity of $1 billion.”
Bruce Schnitzer, the Chairman of Asta’s holding company, Asta Capital Limited, and also Chairman of Paraline, added:“In our few months of partnership, the Consortium and our management partners have bonded well to set a future course to further develop Asta’s franchise and capabilities to serve clients. The combination of deep insurance expertise within the ownership group and the substantial financial resources available to Asta to respond to promising investment opportunities should provide Asta’s leadership with the support it needs to continue building a great business”.
The new name was revealed at the launch event yesterday evening attended by a gathering of luminaries from the London market, customers and staff.
