Pension risk management specialist RiskFirst expands into the US and Canada appointing Alan Colner as a Partner and CEO of new North American division, RiskFirst Inc.

RiskFirst, the pioneering UK-based pension risk management firm has launched a new division, RiskFirst Incorporated, to deliver advanced risk management services to both public and private sector pension plans in the US and Canada. Alan Colner has been appointed CEO of the new division.

RiskFirst’s groundbreaking analytics help public and private sector plan sponsors and trustees proactively measure and manage the risk in their portfolios. The company’s flagship PFaroe® risk management platform is the first to integrate asset and liability risk measures in an easy-to-use, web-based application. This comprehensive approach to pension risk empowers plan sponsors with fast, accurate plan information, analytics and reporting.

RiskFirst enters the North American market at a time when there is greater turmoil than ever before in the defined benefit marketplace. Increased market volatility, growing liabilities and widespread underfunding have driven the need for a more granular view of pension risk.

Following this past year’s successful introduction of RiskFirst’s award-winning analytic tools to the UK market, the company sees a large opportunity to help North American pension plans address a serious requirement to manage risk more effectively.

To lead the expansion effort, PensionsFIrst has named Alan Colner CEO of its North American operation. Prior to joining RiskFirst, Colner was a Partner at Compass Advisers, an international investment banking partnership. In this role he was an adviser to RiskFirst for the past two years, helping the company to raise capital and build an alliance with State Street Corporation which is a minority investor in RiskFirst Analytics.

Colner brings to RiskFirst more than 25 years of experience as a successful private investor, director, founder and advisor for numerous rapidly growing businesses, particularly within the financial services and technology sectors. He has also worked extensively with major institutional investors throughout the world, and with many leading alternative investment managers.

Before joining Compass, Colner was Managing Director, Private Equity Investments at Moore Capital Management, a multi-billion dollar global investment firm. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Corporate Partners, a $1.5 billion private equity fund that managed capital from institutional investors including large corporate and public pension plans.

Colner comments:

“Pension plans throughout North America face rapidly increasing financial pressure because of changing market, regulatory and demographic forces. RiskFirst’s unique, web-based analytics platform, PFaroe, empowers pension executives with a substantially better way to measure and manage risk. The RiskFirst team has dedicated their enormous talents to pioneering technology and capital markets solutions for improving pension management. I am very excited to join this group and provide valuable new services to the pension market.”

Timothy Lyons, founder and CEO of RiskFirst comments:

“As our advisor over the past two years Alan has played a key role in helping us to develop RiskFirst into a game-changing service provider to the defined benefit pensions industry. I am delighted that he has now decided to join us as a partner and that we will have the benefit of his broad experience in financial services to help us drive our business forward in the US and Canadian markets.”