Asia on the horizon for Barrie & Hibbert

Published on Sunday 11 May 2008 21:19

A FAST-GROWING Edinburgh-based financial risk consultancy is now targeting Asia as its next geographical expansion – as it also says it is benefiting from general nervousness in the financial sector.

Barrie & Hibbert expanded out of its Scottish heartland to a London office in August last year before opening a satellite office in New York in March.

The company, which employs 50 people in Lothian Road has revealed that Asia is the next stop. Andy Frepp, the group's corporate development director, said: "We are now looking at opening an office in Asia/Pacific, perhaps Hong Kong or another city in the region."

Frepp added: "In general, in the current sort of nervous environment in financial services regulators look more carefully at financial companies' risk models; how companies are assessing that and what more can be done. We feel we are ideally placed to play into this environment."

Barrie & Hibbert provides software and consultancy services for companies, including banks and insurers.

Last year it won a contract to provide insurance giant Prudential's network of financial advisers with online software allowing them to compare with-profits savings products more easily. The move fitted in with suggestions by the Financial Services Authority, Britain's regulator, that it wanted to see financial companies carrying out regular reviews of existing with-profits investments to ensure their continued suitability for clients.

Frepp said Barrie & Hibbert was now providing "risk solutions" to other major insurers such as AIG, Axa and Aegon, the owner of Scottish Equitable. "It's one of the reasons we moved to the United States, that the tougher regulatory regime in Europe was moving to the US," he said.

Frepp said more rigorous scrutiny of risk models by credit-rating agencies was also providing a tailwind for the company's risk consultancy business and momentum for a further drive overseas. "These big insurance companies, in particular, have major subsidiaries abroad and that is part of the rationale for us looking at Asia," he said.

Despite its eye for overseas opportunities, Barrie & Hibbert says the UK market "remains strong" for its services. "One of our strengths is that our products can be applied across the whole range of retail financial services, which accounts for 20 per cent of our business," Frepp said.

B&H has grown fast in recent years and, by some estimates, now services two-thirds of the UK insurance industry, and more than half the European insurance sector. Early in 2007 US investment bank Goldman Sachs bought a 35 per cent stake in the business.