Fermat adds Singapore IR and Japan office in Asia-Pacific push

Fermat Capital Management, the specialist catastrophe bond and ILS manager, has hired Nicolas Tan as a director of investor relations in Singapore. The hire extends an Asia-Pacific build-out that placed a director in Australia last year and opened a Japan office this year. Artemis reported the appointment.

Tan joins from Aberdeen, where he spent just over two years in business development. Before that he held investor relations and business-development roles at GAM Investments, Capital Group, and Niko Asset Management. He began his career in 2012 at the Dawe Holdings single-family office in Singapore. At Fermat, he will work with Greg Hickling, an Australia-based director of investor relations who joined in early 2025.

Japan is the more substantial piece. Fermat Capital (Japan) K.K. was set up in January to market Fermat's ILS fund strategies to Japanese investors. Takakiyo Iwamoto, a GAM Japan representative director with earlier structuring and sales roles at Barclays, State Street Global Advisors, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and BNP Paribas, joined as director of IR for Japan and co-representative director. Sachie Kobayashi, formerly in product and global investment at GAM, arrived at the same time as a senior IR associate.

The push comes as catastrophe bond issuance picks up. Bermuda reinsurers sponsored $1.37 billion of cat bonds in a record quarter, Insurance Capital Daily reported last week. Rousseau, the ILS investment manager, argued this month that financial capital will keep moving into insurance risk. Placing those bonds calls for a wider investor base. The new hires put dedicated staff closer to the institutions buying ILS through funds.

Artemis ties the expansion to the recent launch of a dedicated cat bond fund strategy. The report gives little detail on that strategy. The distribution effort is clear enough: Fermat now has IR coverage in Singapore, Australia, and Japan, with staff in place for what looks like a fuller issuance pipeline.