LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Information, education and networking services provider Wilmington announced on Wednesday that Axco, its insurance information subsidiary, has entered into a 50-50 joint venture agreement with The Digital Insurer in Singapore.
The London-listed company said the joint venture, Axco Digital Insurer Ratings, would be based in Singapore and develop a new product that would provide insurance industry participants with information on "the new wave" of insurance technology providers that were becoming increasingly important in the industry.

It said insurance technology provided an "exciting opportunity" to enhance and, in some instances, disrupt traditional markets.

The challenge for insurance market participants was to assess the new entrants, and consider how they could best incorporate the new offerings into their current services.

Wilmington said the joint venture would provide syndicated research that would allow subscribers to assess the various insurance technology participants, their services, market propositions and business potential.

It said it would be investing up to $0.26m in the venture, of which $0.25m would be in the form of a loan to the entity.

The Digital Insurer was providing the technical capability to create the intellectual property on which the joint venture's products would be based.

Both partners would use their complementary presence in the global insurance market to leverage business development for the joint venture, Wilmington explained.

The agreement provided the option for Wilmington to subscribe for further shares in the joint venture in the future, allowing it to become a subsidiary once the venture had proved its commercial success.

In accordance with usual practice in such circumstances, the joint venture agreement provided that whilst the entity remained a 50-50 vehicle, any deadlock between the parties could be ultimately resolved through either party offering to sell its shares to the other or to buy the other's shares from it at the same price.

While that provision was uncapped in terms of the amounts involved, in the unlikely event of it being triggered, Wilmington said it would not be expected to be material in a group context.

"We are delighted to be setting up this joint venture with The Digital Insurer," said Wilmington group chief executive officer Pedro Ros.

"The product it will develop will enable us to provide a wider range of services to our current insurance clients as well as introducing us to new industry participants."

Hugh Terry, chief executive officer of The Digital Insurer, added that his company was "looking forward" to working with Wilmington and Axco to deliver the new products to the global insurance market.

"[Insurance technology] is an exciting and fast-developing part of the insurance ecosystem and together we believe we will be able to offer insurance participants unrivalled insight into how to adopt the new offerings in the most effective way."

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