Westaim appointed Andrew Rabinowitz as president and general counsel of Arena Investors Group (AIG). The appointment follows Westaim’s strategic transaction earlier this year with CC Capital, a private investment firm focused on investing in and operating high-quality businesses for the long term, integrating Arena Investors, a diversified global institutional asset manager, and Ceres Life Insurance, a cloud-native and scalable annuity platform led by industry veteran Deanna Mulligan, into an integrated insurance and asset management platform.
In this newly created role, Rabinowitz will work closely with Daniel Zwirn, founder, CEO and CIO of Arena and the leadership team at CC Capital to expand and manage AIG’s commercial operations. He will focus on the growth of AIG’s multi-strategy alternative asset management business and its insurance platform, Arena Life & Annuities Solutions (ALAS).
Rabinowitz brings over 30 years of success in the asset management industry. He joins AIG from alternative asset manager 26North, where he served as a senior partner and general counsel, overseeing the firm’s enterprise solutions team and serving on the firm’s management committee and as a board member of its insurance affiliates, amongst other responsibilities. Prior to that, Rabinowitz served as co-CEO at K2 Integrity, a global risk and consulting advisory firm.
Earlier in his career, Rabinowitz spent nearly 20 years in leadership roles at Marathon Asset Management, including president and general counsel, where he helped grow the firm’s assets under management from approximately $250 million to more than $24 billion. Rabinowitz is also the co-founder and co-president of R Baby Foundation, which he started with his wife over 17 years ago, and which now works with over 1,200 hospitals around the world to improve medical care for over 13 million babies and children.
“Andrew’s proven leadership and business acumen in building world-class asset management organizations and working with LPs and regulators will immediately add value to the Arena business and further strengthen operations,” Cameron MacDonald, president and CEO of Westaim, said. “Westaim, Arena and Ceres Life have taken significant steps in our plans to unlock the benefits of our unique, integrated insurance and asset management platform with CC Capital, and I’m excited to work closely with Andrew and the rest of the team as we seek to achieve the full potential of this platform.”
Zwirn shared, “We are pleased to welcome Andrew to AIG at this important time in the business’ evolution. Andrew brings significant experience in building, growing and managing leading asset management platforms and serving the sophisticated requirements of insurance companies and their policyholders. We’re confident that he will have a meaningful impact on this next phase of growth at AIG.”
Rabinowitz said, “I’m excited to join the platform during an inflection point in its growth, having had the benefit of knowing this leadership team for many years. AIG and its affiliates are well positioned to grow quickly through their ability to source high-quality, long-duration assets that meet the bespoke requirements of alternative credit investors and insurers, and I am eager to leverage my years of legal experience to ensure we maintain a leading legal, compliance and regulatory framework as we continue to support our clients and partners. I look forward to working with Westaim, Ceres Life and CC Capital as we seek to capitalize on this significant market opportunity.”
Chinh Chu, founder and senior managing director of CC Capital and executive chair of the Westaim board of directors, said, “Andrew is a world class executive and his appointment represents an important milestone for Westaim and Arena. We are very excited and look forward to working with Andrew to accelerate growth.”
