Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss.
Creative accounting is a euphemism referring to accounting practices that may follow the letter of the rules of standard accounting practices, but deviate from the spirit of those rules with questionable accounting ethics—specifically distorting results in favor of the "preparers", or the firm that hired the accountant. They are characterized by excessive complication and the use of novel ways of characterizing income, assets, or liabilities, and the intent to influence readers towards the interpretations desired by the authors. The terms "innovative" or "aggressive" are also sometimes used. Another common synonym is "cooking the books". Creative accounting is oftentimes used in tandem with outright financial fraud, and lines between the two are blurred. Creative accounting practices have been known since ancient times and appear world-wide in various forms.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many international financial centers. Goldman Sachs is the second-largest investment bank in the world by revenue and is ranked 55th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. In the Forbes Global 2000 of 2024, Goldman Sachs ranked 23rd. It is considered a systemically important financial institution by the Financial Stability Board.
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. As of 2023, AIG employed 25,200 people. The company operates through three core businesses: general insurance, life & retirement, and a standalone technology-enabled subsidiary. General Insurance includes Commercial, Personal Insurance, U.S. and International field operations. Life & Retirement includes Group Retirement, Individual Retirement, Life, and Institutional Markets. AIG is the title sponsor of the AIG Women's Open golf tournament. In 2023, for the sixth consecutive year, DiversityInc named AIG among the Top 50 Companies for Diversity list.
Legal & General Group plc, commonly known as Legal & General, is a British multinational financial services and asset management company headquartered in London, England. Its products and services include investment management, lifetime mortgages, pensions, annuities, and life assurance. As of January 2020, it no longer provides general insurance following the sale of Legal & General Insurance to Allianz. It has operations in the United Kingdom and United States, with investment management businesses in the Gulf, Europe and Asia.
The Equitable Life Assurance Society, founded in 1762, is a life insurance company in the United Kingdom. The world's oldest mutual insurer, it pioneered age-based premiums based on mortality rate, laying "the framework for scientific insurance practice and development" and "the basis of modern life assurance upon which all life assurance schemes were subsequently based". After closing to new business in 2000, parts of the business were sold off and the remainder of the company became a subsidiary of Utmost Life and Pensions in January 2020.
Prudential Financial, Inc. is an American Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, retirement planning, investment management, and other products and services to both retail and institutional customers throughout the United States and in over 40 other countries. In 2019, Prudential was the largest insurance provider in the United States with $815.1 billion in total assets.
Genworth Financial, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, provides life insurance, long-term care insurance, mortgage insurance, and annuities.
Jackson National Life Insurance Company is a U.S. company that provides annuities for retail investors and fixed income products for institutional investors. Jackson subsidiaries and affiliates provide specialized asset management and retail brokerage services. Prior to being spun off in 2021, Jackson was a subsidiary of the British insurer, Prudential plc, which acquired the company for $608 million in 1986. The company is unrelated to the American insurance conglomerate, Prudential Financial.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Equity is the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs, focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments globally. The group, which is based in New York City, was founded in 1986.
In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.
Sir Mark Edward Tucker is an English businessman, best known for his various roles at Prudential plc, where he was the CEO until September 2009. He currently serves as group chairman of HSBC.
Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, frequently referred to as ABP, is the pension fund for government and education employees in the Netherlands. For the quarter ended 31 December 2014, ABP had 2.8 million participants and assets under management of €344 billion, making it the largest pension fund in the Netherlands and among the five largest pension funds in the world as of September 2016.
PGIM, Inc. (PGIM), formerly known as Prudential Investment Management, functions as the asset management arm of Prudential Financial, an American life insurance company.
F&G Annuities & Life, Inc. is a public company headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. It primarily provides annuities, life insurance, and pension buyout services. The company was founded in 1959.
Intact Financial Corporation is a Canadian multinational property and casualty insurance company. Originally established in 1809 as the Halifax Fire Insurance Association, it was later acquired by Nationale-Nederlanden; from 1993 to 2009, it was a subsidiary of the Dutch multinational ING Group under the name ING Canada. Intact Financial directly underwrites insurance through its subsidiary companies Intact Insurance and Belair Insurance, as well as operating additional brokerage, insurance service, and damage restoration subsidiaries. As of 2017, Intact was the largest provider of property and casualty insurance in Canada by annual premiums.
The Royal London Mutual Insurance Society Limited, along with its subsidiaries, is the largest mutual insurer and investment company in the United Kingdom, and in the top 30 mutuals globally, with Group funds under management of £169 billion, as of March 2024. Group businesses provide 8.5 million policies and employ over 4,400 people, as of June 2024.
A pension buyout is a type of financial transfer whereby a pension fund sponsor pays a fixed amount in order to free itself of any liabilities relating to that fund. The other party, usually an insurer, receives the payment but takes on responsibility for meeting those liabilities.
Anbang Insurance Group was a Chinese holding company whose subsidiaries mainly deal with insurance, banking, and financial services based in Beijing. As of February 2017, the company had assets worth more than CN¥1.9 trillion. The Financial Times described Anbang as "one of China’s most politically connected companies."
A Part VII transfer, also known as an insurance business transfer scheme, is a transfer of business or parts of a business under Part VII of the Financial Services & Markets Act 2000 in the United Kingdom. Part VII transfers are a common tool used by insurance businesses to address required business transformation in preparation for or in response to Brexit.
£68 billion (2024)