Marsh Clients to Benefit From Enhanced Political Risk Resources

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As companies seek to capitalize on opportunities for growth they need the latest information in key risk areas that allows them to make fully informed business decisions. Emerging markets present particular problems arising from less stable political, legal, and business environments.

“Maplecroft maps and analyses dynamic risks to assess 'traditional' shorter term political risks, such as regime stability, rule of law, terrorism, and the business environment. We also focus on structural risks, which evaluate long-term trends in a country, including human rights, resource security, infrastructure readiness and climate change.”

To assist clients in analyzing and monitoring crucial political, economic, social, and environmental risks, Marsh today announced that it has formed an alliance with Maplecroft, the award-winning risk analysis and mapping firm.

The combination of Maplecroft’s resources, which includes maps, indices, scorecards, and in-depth reports, together with Marsh’s research tools and analytics, will give clients an unrivalled depth of analysis and up-to-date insight into the evolving global risk landscape.

As part of the collaboration, Marsh and Maplecroft will hold quarterly country risk analysis presentations and produce bespoke country risk mapping products and in-depth reports for Marsh clients, tailored to their specific risk information requirements.

Commenting on the alignment and benefit to Marsh clients, Evan Freely, Head of Marsh’s Global Political Risk and Trade Credit Practice, said: “The increased globalization of business is coinciding with growing political volatility and unpredictability. This places a premium on the value of high quality global political insight and analysis. The combination of Marsh’s and Maplecroft’s resources is exceptional and will give our clients the edge as they navigate the rapidly evolving international political risk landscape.”

“What makes the Maplecroft–Marsh strategic alliance so exciting is that together we take a very broad view of political risk,” said Professor Alyson Warhurst, CEO of Maplecroft. “Maplecroft maps and analyses dynamic risks to assess 'traditional' shorter term political risks, such as regime stability, rule of law, terrorism, and the business environment. We also focus on structural risks, which evaluate long-term trends in a country, including human rights, resource security, infrastructure readiness and climate change.”

Among the products Marsh clients will be able to access are:

Political Risk Atlas 2011 – Provides a comprehensive appraisal of traditional risk areas including conflict, terrorism, the rule of law and the regulatory and business environment. It also focuses on emerging risk areas and structural challenges affecting political stability, such as resource security, climate change and poverty, covering 196 countries.

Political Risk Quarterly Outlook – Offers up-to-date, one-page country risk scorecards for organisations with operations, supply chains and investments in environments with high levels of inherent political risk. It provides qualitative analysis of significant recent events for each of the three core risk areas and includes country scores and trends across eleven risk areas.

Legal and Regulatory Environment Atlas 2011 – Allows companies to identify and compare a range of legal and regulatory environment risks in 172 countries including: rule of law, respect for property rights, access to remedy, corruption, corporate governance, the regulatory framework and supply chain complicity risk.

Climate Change Risk Atlas 2011 – A unique resource to help organizations assess and compare climate change risks across 170 countries. With detailed analysis and maps of climate change vulnerability; carbon emissions; unsustainable energy and regulation.

Human Rights Risk Atlas 2011 – Contains comparable country scorecards, indices and interactive maps across 30 violation categories for 196 countries, plus sub-national maps and detailed analysis.

Risk Calculator – The Maplecroft Risk Calculator is a high-tech tool that enables companies to select and compare hundreds of country/sovereign risk indices to create custom scorecards that quantify risk for all geographies worldwide.

Map Maker – The Maplecroft Map Maker enables clients to make their own maps. The resource draws on an extensive bank of indices, allowing users to overlay risks and create bespoke heat maps.

Global Risks Forecast – Fortnightly publication that includes analysis of key global events, their impact on business and society plus searchable archive.

Ethical Insight – Fortnightly analysis of corporate responsibility news, plus archive.

About Marsh

Marsh, the world’s leading insurance broker and risk adviser, has over 24,000 employees and provides advice and transactional capabilities to clients in over 100 countries. Marsh is a member of Marsh & McLennan Companies, a global professional services firm with over 50,000 employees worldwide and annual revenue of $10 billion, which is also the parent company of Guy Carpenter, the risk and reinsurance specialist; Mercer, the provider of HR and related financial advice and services; and Oliver Wyman, the management consultancy. Its stock (ticker symbol: MMC) is listed on the New York, Chicago and London stock exchanges.

About Maplecroft

Maplecroft is the leading source of global risks analysis. We research, index and map over 500 risks and issues to identify exposures and opportunities in both countries and companies. Our products and services are a vital resource for businesses and investors requiring analysis and insight into complex political, economic, social and environmental risks. Alyson Warhurst is Honorary Professor at Warwick Business School.