Howard Block is a partner in the Corporate & Financial Services Department and Insurance Transactional and Regulatory practice group. He has significant experience in mergers and acquisitions involving public and private companies, private equity transactions, sales of blocks of business and business lines and general corporate matters, with a particular focus on the insurance sector, as well as complex reinsurance transactions.
Howard has advised insurers, private equity sponsors and other market participants in many of the most significant M&A transactions in recent years in the U.S. insurance industry and has represented clients in transactions in the life, property-casualty, title, specialty lines and health insurance sectors, among others.
Experience
- The management of Bamboo in connection with White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd.’s (NYSE: WTM) sale of Bamboo to CVC Capital Partners, a transaction that values Bamboo at $1.75 billion
- Onex Partners on the acquisition of Integrated Specialty Coverages, a tech-enabled insurance platform, from KKR
- Corebridge Financial, Inc. in its variable annuity reinsurance deal, involving $51 billion of account value, with Corporate Solutions Life Reinsurance Company, an insurance subsidiary of Venerable Holdings, Inc.
- MetLife in its reinsurance transaction of a $10 billion block of variable annuity to a subsidiary of Talcott Financial Group
- Equitable Financial Life in the reinsurance to affiliates of Global Atlantic of a 50% quota share of pre-2009 group retirement VA contracts
- Life and Annuity Insurance Carrier and Holding Company group in multiple financings
- Acronis AG in its sale of a majority stake to EQT
- Title Resources Group (TRG) in its take-private acquisition of real estate technology company Doma Holdings
- MetLife in its reinsurance transaction of a $19.2 billion block of annuity and non-traditional life business to affiliates of Global Atlantic
- A real estate investment firm in its acquisition of a life and annuity insurance carrier.
- Bamboo Ide8 Insurance Services, LLC in its approximately $285 million sale of a majority stake to White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd.
- Prudential Financial in its approximately $10 Billion block reinsurance transaction with an affiliate of Constellation Insurance Holdings, Inc.
- Centerbridge Partners in its acquisition of a controlling stake in Realogy's title insurance underwriter, as part of a strategic agreement to form a title insurance underwriter joint venture with Realogy
- Allstate in the approximately $4.0 billion sale of Allstate Life Insurance Company to entities managed by Blackstone
- Allstate in connection with its approximately $4 billion merger with National General Holdings
- An international asset management firm in its acquisition of a U.S. life and annuity insurance carrier
- Equitable Holdings, Inc. in the sale of its Corporate Solutions life reinsurance subsidiary and related agreement to reinsure a legacy variable annuity block (approximately $12 billion of general account reserves) to Venerable Holdings
- Versant Health, Owner of Davis Vision and Superior Vision, in its $1.675 billion acquisition by MetLife
- Allstate in its $1.43 billion acquisition of SquareTrade
- US cloud-based software vendor Acumatica in its sale to EQT
- Assurant, Inc. in its $2.5 billion acquisition of The Warranty Group
- MetLife in connection with its separation of a substantial portion of its retail segment and related registration of shares of the common stock of its subsidiary Brighthouse Financial, Inc.
- MetLife in the sale of its national distribution sales force
- Aegon in its sale of Transamerica Financial Advisors, Inc. to John Hancock Financial Network
- Bridge Growth Partners, LLC in its:
- sale of Syniti (f/k/a BackOffice Associates) to Capgemini
- sale of Accedian, a leader in performance analytics and end-user experience solutions, to Cisco
- sale of Finalsite to Veritas Capital
- majority equity investment in BackOffice Associates, the worldwide leader in information governance, data stewardship, and data migration solutions
- acquisition of Finalsite, a leading SaaS-based learning and communications platform for U.S. and international schools
- acquisition of Solace, an innovative and leading provider of infrastructure messaging technology
- Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. in its:
- agreement to sell its Public Sector and Education businesses to Vista Equity Partners for $850 million
- acquisition of SunGard in a deal valued at $9.1 billion
- Numerous financial advisor representations
Credentials
Education
Harvard Law School, J.D., 2008 Cornell University, B.S., 2005