Best of Artemis, week ending 5th April 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 5th April 2015, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. 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 April 2015:

1. Brindle & McConachie back with $2B Fidelis re/insurance hybrid
   Richard Brindle, ex-CEO of Lancashire Holdings, is set to return to re/insurance with Fidelis Insurance, employing a hybrid model looking to extract the best from both the underwriting side of the market and the hedge fund reinsurance model.

2. Fosun hails ‘Buffett model’, set to acquire more re/insurance firms
   Private-owned global investment and asset management conglomerate, Fosun International Limited’s adoption of Warren Buffett’s reinsurance and investment model is proving to be a success, as the China-based organisation eyes further acquisitions.

3. ACE & Blackrock launch ABR Reinsurance with $800m capital
   ABR Reinsurance Ltd., the much discussed hybrid reinsurance vehicle, has been officially launched by insurer ACE Limited and investment bank Blackrock, having raised approximately $800m of capital, which was at the lower end of its target.

4. ILS & cat bond rates-on-line have stopped falling: Lane Financial
   After reporting that the decline of average catastrophe rates-on-line for insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bonds was slowing in its last report, Lane Financial has now found that rates in ILS markets have stopped falling and may even be rising (a little).

5. Endurance to buy Montpelier Re for $1.83B, to include Blue Capital
   Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. has just announced that it is to acquire Bermudian reinsurance specialists Montpelier Re Holdings Ltd., giving the company a ready-made third-party capital and ILS investments unit in Blue Capital Management.

6. April reinsurance renewal sees more rate declines, broader terms: Willis
   The reinsurance pricing trend has continued at the April renewals, with loss free accounts largely down in terms of pricing, and terms and conditions seen to be continuing to broaden, according to insurance and reinsurance broker Willis Group.

7. Alternative reinsurance capital hit $64B, up 28% again in 2014: Aon Benfield
   The amount of alternative reinsurance capital in the global reinsurance market rose by 28% again in 2014, finishing the year with $64 billion of alternative or ILS capital deployed and outpacing the growth rate of traditional reinsurance capital significantly.

8. PERILS to investigate European windstorms Niklas and Mike
   PERILS AG, Zurich based provider of industry-wide European catastrophe exposure, industry loss data and indices, will investigate the two recent European windstorms that impacted a number of European markets, Niklas and Mike.

9. Subscale ILS funds may follow AQR’s lead, exit reinsurance: Moody’s
   Some of the smaller, or subscale, insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds may follow the lead of AQR Capital Management’s AQR Re and leave the reinsurance sector, in the opinion of rating agency Moody’s.

10. Stone Ridge ILS & reinsurance funds pass $3B, interval hits $1.66B
    New York based Stone Ridge Asset Management has continued to see impressive growth of its insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bond and reinsurance linked investment funds, passing $3 billion under management across the three funds for the first time.

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 25 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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We’ve now published our Q1 2015 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

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