MetLife builds third-party asset management

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NEW YORK: Metlife Incorporated said Tuesday it will build an asset-management business for outside investors focusing on investments in real estate equity, commercial mortgages and debt private placement.

“Asset management is a capital-efficient business with attractive returns on equity,” Steven Goulart, MetLife’s chief investment officer, said in a statement, adding that, “The strong demand for high-quality private assets among institutional investors makes this an attractive time for market entry.”

MetLife, the largest United States life insurer, which manages some $500bn in general account assets for its policyholders, currently has a small third-party management business focusing on index funds, according to Reuters.

MetLife is reorganising its real estate and private placement groups to facilitate the expansion.

Global head of real estate investments, Robert Merck, will continue to run the group that has been renamed MetLife Real Estate Investors. It currently manages about $43bn of commercial mortgages and $10bn in direct real estate investments, assets that will be folded into the outside management business.

The new equity strategies group will be run by Mark Wilsmann, who has led MetLife’s commercial mortgage business since 2003.

The new debt strategies group, which will raise funds for real estate projects from institutional investors that include other insurance companies, pension plans and sovereign wealth funds, will be run by Brian Casey.

He has been heading MetLife’s Washington, D.C., real estate office.

The company, which says it is the largest life insurance lender, currently manages about $50bn of privately placed debt.

MetLife, which does not break out its individual portfolio investment returns, has no immediate plans to acquire asset-management companies.

“Right now our focus is building on the great strength we have in-house,” said Christopher Breslin, a company spokesman.

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Video clip of Pres. Jonathan’s visit to wife, belated attempt at damage control – ACN

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Action Congress of Nigeria has described as “a belated attempt at damage control” the Presidency’s
decision to show the video clip of President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to his wife, Patience, in Germany on the Nigerian Television Authority.

The party said the video had not addressed the demand for full disclosure on the seven-week disappearance of the president’s wife.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the comments attributed to presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, concerning the video also showed that the Presidency either did not understand the issues at stake, or was deliberately playing the ostrich.

“Let’s be clear, there is nothing to be ashamed of in someone being sick since we are all human and anyone can fall ill at any time.

“In particular, people occupying the public space, including the First Lady, who take ill deserve nothing
but our prayers and sympathy.

“However, where information about such persons are withheld or deliberately distorted, people tend to shift their focus to unravelling the truth about the situation, which is the case with our First Lady,” it said.

ACN described as “a shocking irony” the fact that Jonathan, “who is aware that the poor management of information over the illness of his predecessor, President Umaru Yar’Adua, contributed to the erosion of public sympathy for the late
President and instead swung it in favour of his then Vice President (Jonathan), would make the same mistake by hoarding information on the sickness of his wife.”

The party said, “It is a shame that people just do not learn from the past. Irrespective of the cheeky and unprofessional comments by the presidential spokesman, that the video has put paid to all the lies that people who play politics with almost everything have been spreading, the indisputable fact, going by available information, is that the First Lady indeed took ill and was flown to Germany for treatment.

“Had the information managers at the Presidency lived up to their billing, there would have been a full disclosure immediately
the First Lady fell ill.

“Instead of the unnecessary controversy over her whereabouts, the good people of Nigeria would have
offered prayers in torrents for the First Lady and her family.

“Now making it look like the First Lady went to Germany on holiday ‘to rest’ or she is on a pilgrimage of sorts when indeed she is recuperating from an illness is another testimony to the increasingly legendary incompetence and cluelessness that permeate this Presidency, and we expect all those involved in this amateurish attempt at cover-up to be ashamed of themselves, instead of engaging in empty bravado and pointing fingers at imaginary enemies,” the party said.

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