Until meeting with another disgruntled British insurance executive over a cup of coffee, the head of Global M&A for Sompo Holdings had few real prospects to carry out his charge of finding overseas property/casualty targets for the Japanese group.
“We were just two guys moaning away actually about the markets,” said Nigel Frudd, head of Global M&A and group counsel for Sompo, recounting his initial meeting with John Charman, then chief executive officer of Endurance Specialty Holdings, in late March 2016, which would mark the first step toward Sompo’s $6.3 billion purchase of Endurance in October last year.