BSX nears $5.5 billion listed ILS and cat bonds with Blue Capital and Lakeside Re III

The Bermuda Stock Exchange approved the secondary listing of the 100,100,000 Ordinary Shares of Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund Limited to their exchange on 6th December. The primary listing for the shares is on the London Stock Exchange’s Specialist Fund Market, as we wrote last week. The shares represent the first offering from Bermuda reinsurer Montpelier Re’s newly launched Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund and they take the BSX’s listed ILS and cat bond volume to $5.3 billion.

Blue Capital is Montpelier Re’s asset management platform and the first fund launch will focus on catastrophe reinsurance, retrocession, insurance-linked securities, catastrophe bonds and industry loss warranties, as it seeks to offer an innovative catastrophe reinsurance-linked investment product to both institutional and retail investors.

The BSX has been growing the volume of insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds listed on the exchange over the last year. At the end of 2011 they reached $3.3 billion, which quickly grew to just under $4.7 billion by July this year, reached just over $5 billion in September and now with the addition of the $100m from Blue Capital it has reached approximately $5.3 billion.

We expect the BSX will reach $5.5 billion around the end of the year when the latest cat bond to come to market Lakeside Re III Ltd., which is being issued by a Bermuda domiciled SPI, will likely list its notes on the exchange as well. The $5.5 billion now includes two reinsurance-linked fund listings with the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund now joined by the Blue Capital fund.

Greg Wojciechowski, President & CEO of the BSX commented on the listing; “I am delighted to welcome Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund Limited to secondary listing on the BSX. At the BSX, we have successfully operated a state of the art internationally recognized listing and trading platform in Bermuda for many years. As the insurance and capital market industries continue to converge, it is very apparent that Bermuda and the BSX has a role to play in assisting the continued development of the ILS asset class. The BSX is in the position to provide full and immediate exchange support to the ILS space… I look forward to working with the insurance industry to bring to market new and exciting products that are listed and traded on the BSX in Bermuda.”

William Pollett, President of Blue Capital Management Ltd., added; “We are delighted to launch this listed fund which will provide targeted exposure to the reinsurance market via a partnership with Montpelier’s global property catastrophe franchise. We believe a secondary listing on the BSX brings significant value for our institutional and private client investors and highlights our support for the continued development of the local marketplace.”

The listing of the shares was sponsored by Prime Management Limited, a licensed fund administrator by the Bermuda Monetary Authority under the Investment Funds Act 2006. John Whiley, from Prime Management Limited said; “We are pleased to have been able to assist Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund Limited with their listing on the BSX. As an independent fund administrator and listing sponsor which is active in servicing the insurance-linked security investment community, we are very excited to see the continued growth and innovation in risk-linked investments”.

Read our coverage of Blue Capital’s launch in these articles:

– Baillie Gifford takes 10% of Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund (11th December)

– Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund shares list on LSE (6th December)

– Blue Capital sees $1 billion opportunity, will target retail and institutional investors (5th December)

– Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund raises targeted $100m (4th December)

– Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund launch details emerge (30th November)

– Montpelier Re said to be planning a London listed reinsurance investment fund (9th November)