Best of Artemis, week ending 30th September 2012

An interesting week in the markets we cover on Artemis, with a high-profile, and very welcome transaction offering diversification for cat bond investors in MultiCat and an interesting new company launch in Multi-Strat. As always, you can read every news story and article on the Artemis news blog and for your convenience these are the ten most popular news articles from the last seven days on Artemis.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 30th September 2012:

1. New MultiCat Mexico 2012 catastrophe bond coming to market
   Unsurprisingly, the most popular article of last week was the news that the MultiCat Mexico catastrophe bond was being repeated with this 2012 issuance. MultiCat Mexico Ltd. Series 2012-1 will replace the cover afforded by the MultiCat Mexico 2009 cat bond which matures at the end of September.
2. Investors seeking yield need look no further than catastrophe bonds
   In the financial markets, the term yield is used to describe the return that investors make or expect to make from their investment in a security. With an example asset such as insurance-linked securities or cat bonds it can best be thought of as amount of cash that investors will make from the coupons, or interest payments, they receive.
3. EU may delay Solvency II insurance capital rules to 2015
   European Commissioner Michel Barnier, who is responsible for the implementation of the Solvency II regulatory rules, has proposed to halt the talks discussing the issue until a new study can be undertaken into the impact of Solvency II on insurers and reinsurers.
4. Eurozone breakup could impact catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities
   Strangely, an article from July has been very popular in the last week. In this article we discussed whether cat bonds and ILS face a correlation risk with a breakup of the European monetary union or the exit of a key country from the Eurozone.
5. A capital market for longevity risk transfer is not far away
   A panel at an event Artemis attended last week was particularly timely as it discussed the potential for further development of the longevity risk transfer market and asked the panelists to give their view points on how far along the market is, what is required to progress its development and when we could expect to see some transactions.
6. Multi-Strat Re to make it easier for hedge funds to get into reinsurance
   A new company launch could see the next generation of reinsurance-focused hedge fund managers entering the reinsurance space more easily, and with lower cost, than perhaps some of the hedge fund managers already active in the space experienced when they decided to allocate capital to reinsurance. This article, published on Friday, has generated significant interest in a short space of time.
7. A liquid capital market in longevity risk will be vital: Swiss Re
   Reinsurer Swiss Re has renewed calls for a liquid market for longevity risk transfer to be created in their latest publication.
8. Extreme weather and changing climate a growing risk to re/insurers
   A stormy future lies ahead for U.S. property and casualty re/insurers according to a new report from Ceres, a nonprofit group advocating for sustainability leadership from businesses and investors.
9. More details on Munich Re’s plans to launch an ILS & catastrophe bond fund
   We revealed the news that the world’s largest reinsurer, Germany headquartered Munich Re, was working on plans to launch an insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond fund and in this article followed it up with some interview comments from a spokesperson at the firm.
10. Hannover Re appreciates diversification offered by catastrophe bonds
    We asked a Hannover Re spokesperson for some comments about the recently completed Eurus III Ltd. cat bond and the value Hannover Re finds in the cat bond market.