Best of Artemis, week ending 5th October 2014

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 5th October 2014, on catastrophe bonds, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics, from the last seven days on Artemis. To ensure you never miss a thing  subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 5th October 2014:

1. Stone Ridge hits $2Bn of ILS & reinsurance-linked assets for first time
   New York based Stone Ridge Asset Management, which offers mutual fund investments in alternative risk exposures including reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS), has passed the $2 billion mark between its three ILS funds for the first time.

2. Mariah Re catastrophe bond litigation dismissed
   A New York Federal judge dismissed claims regarding the catastrophe bond Mariah Re Ltd. on Tuesday, according to court transcripts. The judge ruled that the terms governing the definition of and process for qualifying events of Mariah Re are unambiguous.

3. Expecting ILS capital to exit after losses or rate rises is ‘overly simplistic’
   The suggestion that insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors will flee from the reinsurance market, after a large industry loss or as soon as interest rates rise, is an ‘overly simplistic’ view on the sector according to market participants.

4. Pioneer files offering for launch of new Interval ILS Fund
   Pioneer Investments, a U.S. based mutual fund manager with a number of strategies that already include exposure to insurance-linked securities and reinsurance-linked assets, has filed documents with the SEC for a new interval ILS fund, its first dedicated ILS strategy.

5. Alternative capital could take 50% or more of global prop cat market
   Alternative reinsurance capital and insurance-linked securities (ILS) could command 50% or even more of global property catastrophe reinsurance market limit as the ILS investor base continues to grow, Brett Houghton of Fermat Capital said at a recent event.

6. AQR to launch first catastrophe bond fund strategy
   Investment management firm AQR Capital Management LLC has registered its first catastrophe bond fund with the SEC, which would position the fund for launch to investors in 2015.

7. IBM pension fund allocates 1% to reinsurance with Nephila
   As we wrote just last week, large pension funds continue to show their attraction to investments in reinsurance, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bonds, with new mandates and recent allocations still coming to light.

8. New Tokio Millennium Re CEO hints at focus on ILS & convergence
   Bermuda-based reinsurer Tokio Millennium Re AG, a subsidiary of Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., affirmed its commitment to, perhaps hinting at an increased focus on, the ILS and reinsurance convergence markets in a recent announcement.

9. Expansion & diversification most notable ILS developments in 2014: Guy Carpenter
   Insurance-linked securities (ILS) have seen rapidly growing capital inflows from a varied investor base, but broker Guy Carpenter (GC) feels it’s the expanding and diversified manner with which ILS is accessing reinsurance risk that has been most notable in 2014.

10. First rating criteria for insurance-linked funds proposed by A.M. Best
    Rating agency A.M. Best has published and is seeking comments on a new draft rating criteria which we believe to be the first to specifically target insurance-linked funds, including those investing in catastrophe bonds, ILS and collateralized reinsurance.

This is by no means every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago. There were 23 new articles published in the last week. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story subscribe to our weekly email newsletter which is delivered every Wednesday.

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Artemis’ Q3 2014 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A lazy summer for ILS

We’ve now published our Q3 2014 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the third-quarter of 2014, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q3 2014.

Download your copy here.