Richard Watson, CEO of Inigo, and Rick Thornberry, CEO of Radian, join J.D. at the New York Stock Exchange to discuss their newly completed partnership, strategic expansion into specialty insurance, and what the combination means for growth in 2026.
Get the latest news and updates on FINTECH.TV
All right.
Joining the broadcast now are two very special guests down here as well.
Say hello first to Richard Watson, CEO of Indigo, and Rick Thornberry, CEO of Radian.
Nice to have both of you gentlemen down here.
Thanks for being here.
Great to be here.
An absolute pleasure to be here.
Absolutely.
First of all, can I get your, your, your experience for you guys?
You had an amazing group down here to ring the closing bell.
What was the experience like?
I'll start with you.
Mind blowing.
This is something you've seen throughout your life and then suddenly to be part of it and to be.
Part of this marketplace is an extraordinary privilege.
I feel very blessed.
Rick.
Each time I've been here before, but each time I'm here it's special, and what made it special today is we brought both teams together so they were able to spend time, enjoy the celebration together, and just had a good time.
So let's talk about those two teams.
I'll start with radiant because we got the stock chart up right over your shoulder.
A strong day for kind of a wonky tape overall, up more than 2%.
Talk to me about what Radiant is all about and some of your top.
Priorities here in early 2026.
So, C Rian has historically been a mortgage insurance company serving homeowners across the country, helping first-time homebuyers be in a position to buy their homes.
So homeownership at the center of our thesis.
But with this acquisition we really emerged from a model line US insurance company to a global specialty multi-iance specialty insurance company.
And so the combination that, you know, Richard and I come together.
To put together here these two companies something special, so we look forward to kind of 26 making the best of these two companies kind of coming together in partnership and charting an exciting path to the future.
What does this look like from the indigo side of things for you?
A privileged to be part of the Radium Group.
From my point of view, I've got 250 people who are motivated, excited, want to get in front of customers, want to do something different.
And the Radium Group gives us the stability to go and do that day in, day out, week in, week out.
So for all of us, we're over the moon.
This means we can get back in front of customers doing what we love.
Rick, why is right now the right time for this type of partnership?
We talk a lot about mergers and acquisitions and general relationships across industries.
I'm always fascinated with the timing.
Is it macroeconomic conditions?
Are there other things that go into a decision?
I think it's largely strategic.
Just looking at ways for us to diversify our business into other opportunities from a revenue point of view.
These two businesses are non-correlated from a risk point of view.
The combination actually doubles radian's revenues.
It's immediately accretive.
We had the capital to do the transaction within our own balance sheet.
So when it comes together, it's really actually a very attractive financial transaction.
I would say the reason it works is a cultural match, the chemistry match, the strategic kind of alignment between risk, data and analytics, customer focus, employee culture.
So it's been, you know, I think we can look at the numbers and say this is really financially attractive, but the thing that probably excites Richard and I both is how it culturally fits.
Two companies come together they actually value the same thing.
I love the culture component about this.
What are some of those core values important to Indigo that you think really make this a relationship that makes sense for us?
We really win when we park our ego.
We put the ego aside.
We collaborate well.
We turn up with real energy and enthusiasm, and if you do that day in and day out, it's amazing what happens.
That's an environment that smart, driven people really want to be part of, and our success is keeping, developing.
Those amazing people.
That's awesome.
I'm almost out of time, but quickly, for either of you, Jeff, you can give me some sense of what the rest of 2026 looks like now that this is kind of official for both your firms.
It's the beginning of a great journey, the beginning of a great partnership, and I think you can see from the team that came together today kind of how excited people are.
So I look at it as day or day three of a very exciting journey.
I think 26 is.
The first year of that long term path.
So we're excited to get this done and behind us, get the two teams together.
Richard and I've spent a lot of time together having kind of plotting this out.
So I think we're excited.
An absolute sense of excitement and opportunity.
So for us, I mean, thrilled.
Like I'm just really, really thrilled.
Amazing.
Congratulations to both of you guys, all your companies as well.
Come back and visit us here at the New York Stock Exchange anytime.
Very nice.
