SCOR officially announces Atropos insurance-linked securities fund

French reinsurer SCOR has officially announced the launch of their Atropos insurance-linked securities fund today. We’ve written about Atropos previously, you can find our earlier articles about this new ILS fund here, the fund actually launched on the 31st August and has since been marketed to investors but SCOR have today published a press release regarding this. The full press release from SCOR can be read below.

SCOR launches the Insurance-Linked Securities fund “Atropos”

On 31 August 2011, SCOR launched the Insurance-Linked Securities fund “Atropos” dedicated to insurance risks.

This fund enables investors to benefit from extreme natural catastrophe market risks such as hurricanes, earthquakes and storms. This asset class, known as “Insurance-Linked Securities” (ILS), is not correlated to the financial markets, offers high historical yields and facilitates real investment portfolio diversification.

Managed by SCOR Alternative Investments and domiciled in Luxembourg, the Atropos SICAV-SIF, dedicated to institutional investors, has an annual performance objective of Libor + 700 basis points.

“With this investment vehicle, SCOR Alternative Investments is offering the opportunity to access a diversified insurance risk portfolio in terms of perils, regions and instrument types, which is particularly difficult to obtain in this asset class”, explains Olivier Nolland, Head of Sales & Marketing at SCOR Alternative Investments.

François de Varenne, CEO of SCOR Global Investments and SCOR Alternative Investments, comments: “The Atropos fund enables investors to benefit from all the experience of SCOR, fifth largest reinsurer in the world, in terms of market access, pricing capability and risk management. For SCOR, the launch of this fund cements its entry into third party asset management, which was one of the initiatives announced as part of its strategic plan, “Strong Momentum”.

The asset management companies SCOR Global Investments and SCOR Alternative Investments, which are 100% owned by SCOR, are responsible for managing the Group’s asset portfolio, which stood at EUR 12.1 billion on 30 June 2011.

As well as this press release SCOR have published a marketing sheet which gives a little more background on the fund, what the value proposition is and how the portfolio of catastrophe bonds, insurance-linked securities, industry loss warranties (ILW’s) and financial insurance contracts are diversified.

Initial portfolio target allocation for Atropos (may change as subsequent market conditions and risk constraints vary)

As you can see from the chart above the fund is well diversified across a number of risks and territories at launch.