Insight

Managing Divestitures of Entangled Business Assets

John Rodgers, Jim Kane, and Jenny Halim highlight the importance of minimizing disruption and maximizing retained value when divesting entangled assets in this Insurance Thought Leadership article.

Insight

From Pilot to Scale: Building the GenAI-Ready Organization

From Pilot to Scale: Building the GenAI-Ready Organization

While GenAI today is in the public eye, early forms of AI have influenced the workplace for decades. AI appeared in the 1950s, with more practical applications emerging thirty years later. With advances in machine learning and natural language processing, AI’s role expanded. Most remember when GenAI took center stage in late 2022, with ChatGPT capturing the world’s attention. According to OpenAI, more than one million people signed up in just five days.

Insight

Despite Successive Interest Rate Cuts, the $2.7 Trillion Commercial Real Estate Problem Isn’t Going Away

Pierre Buhler and Andrew Jones discuss the future state of the commercial real estate market in this ABF Journal article.

Insight

Growth Equity Today: Adapting Buyout Playbooks to Accelerate Performance

Growth equity firms today face extraordinary market characteristics. Hold periods have extended, many investments are ‘upside down,’ and fund IRRs, on average, have turned negative. Additionally, capital costs have increased, and raising capital has grown increasingly difficult.

Insight

Avoiding Financial Shock: Today’s Commercial Real Estate Is Dealing with a New Reality

The commercial real estate market is experiencing significant challenges, including rising build costs, declining demand for space, and increased refinancing risks, creating a complex landscape for investors and lenders. Pierre Buhler and Andrew Jones discuss the significant challenges currently facing the global commercial real estate market in this Scotsman Guide article.

Insight

Stubbornly High Interest Rates Call for a New Cost-Cutting Playbook for Banks

As interest rates remain historically high, Rajeev Aggarwal and Pierre Buhler share a cost-cutting playbook for banks in this ABFJournal article.

Insight

Three Important Operational Priorities for Life Insurance in 2024

In life insurance and annuities, the promise has always been unwavering stability and resilience. Insurance companies have adapted to the times by being measured and purposeful, living their commitment to providing long-term security. The last decade challenged this paradigm, having introduced a relentless wave of innovation, including contactless underwriting, consumer demand for digital-centric interactions, the office impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the entry of private equity, and rapid fluctuations in interest rates, with the looming threat of declining asset values already requiring another round of new investment strategies, product revisions, and balance sheet optimizations. 

Insight

Looking Back at 2023

2023 was a difficult market in many ways. Acquisitions and dollars invested along with exits and IPOs were down while capital under management continued to accumulate. As a result, the world for financial sponsors grew much more competitive, causing them to focus on building distinctive, proven competitive advantages – in raising capital, in finding deals, in exiting, and of course, in fundamental value creation.

Insight

Banking’s Cost Crunch: Tackling Layoffs and Regulatory Challenges

Beyond personnel overages, banks are pressed to get their costs well under control for the foreseeable future. The second article in our two-part series looking at the top risks facing banks focuses on the ever more demanding regulatory and compliance requirements, increased need for human and financial resources, and commercial and personal defaults/default risks to avoid.