Nicholas Bugler
Partner, Corporate & Financial Services
Nicholas Bugler is a partner in the Corporate & Financial Services Department and the Insurance Transactional and Regulatory Practice Group in London. He advises on a wide range of issues affecting the international insurance and reinsurance industries. He advises both insurance and reinsurance companies, insurance general agents and investors of all types. Recently, he has had a particular focus on the intersection of the reinsurance and capital markets industries.
Chambers UK (2024) ranks Nicholas among the leading practitioners for Insurance: Non-Contentious. Nicholas is also recognised by Best Lawyers (2024) for insurance law and The Legal 500 UK (2024) for Insurance: Corporate and Regulatory, where clients have described him as "an exceptional insurance market lawyer with deep expertise in Lloyd’s, ILS and related structuring issues. Nicholas is always calm, thoughtful and available to clients and provides high quality advice."
Corporate and Insurance Regulatory
Nick has advised on major corporate transactions, including complex reinsurance relationships between seller and buyer, mergers and acquisitions, the restructuring of an insurance business including cross-border transfers of an insurance portfolio into the UK; insurance business transfers under Part VII of the Financial Services Markets Act 2000; loss portfolio transfers and security arrangements offered to reinsurers. He has advised on the establishment of numerous “side car” reinsurance vehicles for UK and European insurers and advised on “cat bonds”. The interface between the reinsurance and capital markets is a significant part of his practice. He is noted as a specialist in the developing insurance linked securities market and the provision of collateralised reinsurance.
He has provided advice on the structuring of business which wish to enter the London insurance/reinsurance companies’ markets and the Lloyd’s market, the establishment of the insurers/reinsurers, regulation of insurers/reinsurers in the UK and the European Union, and on the establishment of a range of permitted activities of service companies owned by insurance groups.
Experience
- Advised Arch Capital Group Ltd. in its acquisition of a 29.5% stake in Coface, the French-based leader in the global trade credit insurance listed on Euronext Paris, from Natixis
- Nephila Capital Limited – advised on the establishment of Nephila’s Lloyd’s platform including the establishment of a Lloyd’s syndicate set up to write $1.5 billion of collateralised reinsurance contracts, which represented a coming together of the insurance linked securities markets with the traditional reinsurance markets at Lloyd’s.
- Advised Axis on the conversion of Axis Specialty Europe Limited and Axis Re Limited into the form of a European company called Societas Europaea.
- Represented Axis Specialty Holdings Bermuda Limited on the establishment of Axis's syndicate and underwriting operation at Lloyd’s.
- Represents Securis Investments Partners on investments into the insurance linked securities market including structures for the provision of collateralised reinsurance.
- Represented Argo on the establishment of the Harambee Re “side cars”.
- Represented Munich Re in connection with its Eden Re side car.
- Advised Lancashire Insurance Holdings Limited on regulatory and structuring aspects of its acquisition of Cathedral Underwriting Limited and subsequent capital restructuring.
- Represented Kiln Group in its redomiciliation from UK to Bermuda by way of formation of a new Bermudan group holding company pursuant to a scheme of arrangement and the associated establishment of a new Bermuda reinsurer and subsequent reorganisation of its underwriting capital.
- Advised on the structuring and entry into the UK insurance market (both Lloyd’s and non-Lloyd’s) by various listed and private equity backed international groups.
- Advised Apollo on its acquisition of Brit Insurance PLC along with joint venture partner CVC.
- Advised Tower Group on its investment to Canopius Group Limited and on the restructuring of associated reinsurance arrangements.
- Advised Axis on its investment into Spinnaker, the holding company of a specialist international benefits insurer, and subsequent disposal of such investment.
- Advised Tawa on its US$1 billion acquisition of CX Re.
- A London listed insurance company on its offer, on behalf of its Lloyd’s corporate member subsidiary, to acquire Lloyd’s syndicate capacity in exchange for cash or listed shares.
- Advised private equity fund and a Lloyd’s reinsurer on a collateralized quota share reinsurance and derivative transformer transaction.
- Advised Accordion Holdings Limited and its sponsor, Lancashire Insurance Company Limited, on the formation and $250 million private equity funding commitments to Accordion as a new retrocessionaire shelf sidecar for property catastrophe risks.
- Advised Prudential (US) on various “longevity” reinsurance transactions.
* Willkie Farr & Gallagher (UK) LLP is a limited liability partnership formed under the laws of the State of Delaware, USA and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority with registration number 565650.
Credentials
Education
University of Sussex, M.A., 1983 University of Bristol, B.A. (honors), 1982