Best of Artemis, week ending 4th October 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 4th October 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 4th October 2015:

1. Q3 2015 Cat Bond & ILS Market Report: A market making steady progress
   Our latest quarterly report looking at issuance in the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market has now been published. The report titled ‘Q3 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A market making steady progress‘ reflects a quarter of strong and diverse issuance, as the market tries to keep up with investor demand.

2. Reinsurance M&A ‘mega deals’ an opportunity for ILS
   Increased merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, deal value and deal size during the first-half of 2015, highlights a return of the ‘mega deal’, but what implications might market consolidation have for alternative reinsurance capital and ILS participants?

3. SCOR expects new reinsurance demand as Solvency II approaches
   A potential bright spot for reinsurers has been highlighted by global reinsurance company SCOR, which is expecting to see an increased and new demand for capacity from some of its larger, global clients, as the implementation of Solvency II approaches in early 2016.

4. CATCo launches capital raise for retro Reinsurance Opportunities Fund
   Bermuda-headquartered CATCo Investment Management, the reinsurance and retrocession linked investment and fund manager, has launched a new placement programme and an initial placing, as it seeks to raise new equity capital for its flagship listed fund.

5. Reinsurance cycle signals reduced payout period post-event: JLT Re
   Cyclical changes in the global reinsurance sector; underlined by a supply/demand imbalance, lower cessions and a wave of competition, suggests that the impact of a significant loss event would likely be restricted to one or two renewals, says JLT Re.

6. Stone Ridge ILS & reinsurance assets hit $3.713 billion, up 13%
   New York based Stone Ridge Asset Management, the beta and alternative risk focused mutual fund manager, has again grown its insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked assets under management, now hitting $3.713 billion, up 13% between May and the end of July.

7. Buffett reduces shareholding in reinsurance firm Munich Re
   Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and National Indemnity Company have reduced their shareholdings in reinsurance firm Munich Re to 9.7%. Previously, the two firms held around 12% of the share capital of Munich Re.

8. Hedge fund reinsurers hit on investment side again in September
   Financial market volatility has again hit the two most prominent hedge fund reinsurance firms, with both Greenlight Re and Third Point Re reporting another negative month on the investment side of their businesses in September.

9. Political will an obstacle to narrowing insurance protection gap
   Political will and the role of governments is an obstacle that makes it harder for the insurance, reinsurance and ILS industry to effectively begin to narrow the protection gap, according to a Swiss Re representative.

10. Market pressures raise differing opinions on reinsurance cycle
    With the soft re/insurance market cycle ongoing, exacerbated by ample capacity, a supply/demand imbalance and benign loss activity, industry experts have discussed whether the reinsurance cycle has as much of an influence on the market today as in the past.

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 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A market making steady progress

We’ve now published our Q3 2015 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 2015, looking at the $1.093 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q3 2015.

Download your copy here.