LBBC Webinar Demystifying Banking & Insurance for Trade with Libya

WELCOME SESSION

BANKING SESSION

INSURANCE SESSION

Sir Vincent Fean KCVO, Chairman, LBBC
Sir Vincent has been Chairman of the LBBC since January 2016. He joined the Foreign Office in 1975, learning Arabic in 1977-8. He has served in Iraq, Syria, Malta, Libya (Ambassador 2006 – 10) and Jerusalem (responsible for UK/Palestinian relations 2010 – 14).
He left the Foreign Office in February 2014. Deeply interested in Libya/UK business, education and health cooperation, he is also a member of the Palestine Britain Business Council and an Officer of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.

Paul Jennings, Director, LBBC
Paul Jennings has over 35 years’ experience in the International Wholesale Banking sector.  Paul is a board member of the Arab Bankers Association and joined the Board of LBBC in September 2018.  Paul has spent the past 21 years at ABC International Bank where he was Managing Director and CEO until December 2020. Prior to this he was was Deputy CEO of ABC International Bank plc and Group Head, Global Trade Finance of Arab Banking Corporation (B.S.C.).

Ahmed Ben Halim, Chairman, Libya Holdings Group Ltd
Ahmed Ben Halim has over 35 years’ experience in Principal Investments, Corporate Finance and
Asset Management.
Ahmed is Founding Partner of The Capital Partnership (“TCP”) (www.tcpam.com) a family office based in London. TCP was founded in 1998 and currently has over $2 billion in assets under management on behalf of families and institutions.
In addition, Ahmed is the Founder and Chairman of Libya Holdings Group Ltd. (LHG). LHG is a leading investment company in post-revolution Libya that develops strategic investments in the
country’s power, cement, port, manpower and oilfield services sectors. Overall LHG employs more
than 2000 people across its businesses.
Prior to setting up TCP, Ahmed was Head of Asset Management at Saudi International Bank (“SIB”) in London and was a member of its management committee. During his time at SIB, Ahmed also held a number of positions in arbitrage trading and investment banking and was responsible for managing funds in excess of US$5 billion. Prior to joining SIB, Ahmed was a resident advisor at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency.
Ahmed holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Surrey and an M.A. in Law & Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Ahmed is an FCA (previously FSA) ‘approved person’ of TCP UK responsible for the CF1Director function.

Damien Moore MP, Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Tunisia and Libya
Damien Moore MP has chaired a number of All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs), including those on Tunisia, Blockchain, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and has served on both the Petitions Committee and the Science & Technology Committee.
Damien was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Cabinet Office in 2019, and currently serves as the PPS to the Department for Enviornment, Food and Rural Affairs. In October 2020, Damien was appointed as the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy for Tunisia and Libya.

HE Saddek Elkaber, Governor of the Central Bank of Libya
Mr Elkaber is the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, Member of the Libyan Investment Authority Board of Trustees, Chairman of National AML & CFT Committee and also Chairman of Bank ABC Group and ABC International Bank plc.  His extensive experience includes prior positions as Unit Head of Accounts Payable at ELF Aquitaine and Senior Accountant at a major US health insurance corporation in Connecticut, USA, as well as positions as Chairman and General Manager of notable banks and banking associations in Libya and Tunis, most notably with the Arab Banking Corporation (ABC).  For over 35 years Mr Elkaber has also served as a member of the Board for many prominent Middle East and North African companies, including Arab Financial Services in Bahrain and Libyan Financing Leasing in Tripoli, Libya.  Mr Elkaber holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Benghazi, Libya and a master’s degree in International Business & MSPA from the University of Hartford, Connecticut, USA.

Charlie Lazenby, Managing Partner, Campion Willcocks Compliance
Charlie manages the compliance team within Campion Willcocks, who act as SME consultants across the banking sector, focussing exclusively on the compliance space. The Financial Crime and Anti Money Laundering obligations on this sector continue to increase – and Campion Willcocks deploy tactical teams to assist Financial Institutions with their compliance requirements. The support ranges from the deployment of automated tools, through to providing operational SME teams for larger scale projects.

Our predominant focus tends to be on ‘higher risk’ compliance areas (including geographies) and thus whilst our operations are based from the UK, projects have included on the ground deployments across the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Cyprus, Guernsey, Jersey, Switzerland and Malta to name but a few. Charlie has led this team since 2008, and has thus experienced across a large number of clients the ongoing challenges that continuously increasing Regulation brings across the sector.

Assad Riyany, Head of Libyan Business, Bank ABC
Assad Riyany is Head of Libyan Business at Bank ABC based in London and heads a team responsible for Bank ABC’s Libyan relationships including, Banks, Corporate and non-Banking Institutions, covering all products areas.  Assad started with Bank ABC in the Treasury Department in a number of roles culminating in being appointed as Head of Treasury Sales for ABC international Bank (European subsidiary of Bank ABC) where he managed the treasury relationships of the European units. In 2016 he was appointed as the head of the newly created Libyan business desk. He has extensive knowledge of Libyan financial institutions and corporates through his work covering the Libyan market for many years as well as his position as a board member of a Libyan commercial bank.

Salim Abukhzaam, Head of Libya Desk, BACB
Salim joined BACB in 2012 as a secondee from Libya Foreign Bank (LFB) where he had been a dealer in the treasury department, latterly as chief dealer. At BACB Salim has worked in treasury sales and was promoted to head of the Libya desk in 2016.  His career has had a distinctly international flavour with visits to big international institutions in addition to his secondment to BACB (including Credit Agricole, SOG and JP Morgan), to expand and consolidate his knowledge.

Alfonso Rodriguez, CEO, Libyan Cement Company
Alfonso is an executive with over 22 years of experience in the cement sector. He was CEO of BMM Group a Spanish cement multinational from where he moved to Orascom Cement in Cairo in 2007 as Global Business Development Director and in charge of Algeria (CIBA) and Spain.
Over the last 10 years, Alfonso has held several top management positions in HeidelbergCement AG, the second largest cement producer in the World. Among others, he has been CEO and Chairman of the Board of Tanzania Portland Cement Company, one of the largest cash contributors to the Group and Chairman of the Board of all HeidelbergCement companies in South, Central and East Africa.
Alfonso joined the Libyan Cement Company as Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO in February 2020 and is currently based in Benghazi.

Mark Browning, Special Risks Broker, Lime Street Brokers
I have been working in the Insurance market since 1995 and for the last 12 years specialising in the provision of multiple line risk solutions in ‘distressed territories’ worldwide including (but not limited to) Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya with particular focus on the protection of international investment in these regions.

Chris Hotchkiss, AD Ducendum Ltd
Chris is an international security consultant specialising in risk assessments and risk mitigation in high-risk environments. After a successful military career Chris has been a private security professional for over 10 years, managing country operations with over 2000 staff and facilitating market entry into the world’s most dangerous environments. Chris has provided and currently provides risk consulting and risk management for some of the world’s largest security companies. Chris’ international best practice risk assessment and risk mitigation processes enables Political Violence and Business continuity coverage to be obtained for large ultra high risk infrastructure projects and business operations in some of the worlds most distressed territories.

Neil Galletti, Managing Director, Howden Group
Neil has over 30 years’ experience of insurance broking in the London market.
Neil started his career as a broker in political risks and structured credit insurance broking at Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT), where he later became a Senior Partner of JLT Risk Solutions. Neil’s principal role at JLT was to negotiate medium and long-term transactions for financial institutions, which involved both sovereign risks and private obligors. Neil estimates that the total value of export and trade finance capacity that he has placed during his career to be in excess of USD 20bn globally.
Following his time at JLT, Neil was the joint founder of Political Risks and Structured Credit underwriting team at ACE Insurance (now Chubb). In this role, Neil was responsible for underwriting global trade and export credit risks and was the first underwriter in the market to develop a comprehensive underwriting strategy for the Structured Credit business.
In 2003, Neil founded the Political Risks and Structured Credit division at R K Harrison Insurance Brokers and is currently the Managing Director of Global Credit Solutions division at Howden (formerly RKH).
During his 17-year tenure at Howden, Neil has positioned Howden to be at the forefront of innovation in the field, this is demonstrated through his achievements in product development. In 2003, Neil created Tepfin, a unique online trading platform used by financial institutions and exporters to access a live database of available capacity and premium rates from the most established Structured Credit & Political Risk (re)insurers in the market. Neil has also been responsible for the creation of the London insurance market’s first ‘structured credit’ risk participation agreement facility (following BAFT) and led the implementation of the first portfolio in London of ‘non-trade’corporate loans for a financial institution.
Furthermore, Neil has been involved in every ECA reinsurance transaction the team has placed in London. In 2013, he was influential in the placement of a landmark 10 year Ethiopian transaction that utilised an innovative policy structure (the ‘wedding cake’) to allow coverage to extend for the entirety of the transaction despite insurers restrictions on the tenors they could accept.