AXA IM adds near $100m from Asian private bank investors

AXA Investment Managers, the asset management unit of the major global insurer AXA, has targeted the Asian private banking market with some success, reportedly raising approximately $100 million for its latest catastrophe bond fund strategy.

Asian investors are showing an increasing interest in investments in reinsurance linked assets, such as catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities (ILS).

At Artemis’ Singapore conference this year, the diversity of the Asian ILS investor base was noted, as was the potential for ILS fund managers to grow thanks to the increasing interest being shown in ILS across the region.

Institutional investors in Asia continue to crave education on the ILS and reinsurance-linked asset class, as do other types of investors in the Asia region, but private banking clients are clearly coming up to speed and AXA Investment Managers has been successfully targeting them.

According to APB Mandate, Asian private banking clients have allocated around $100 million to AXA Investment Managers cat bond fund since it was introduced in the region this summer.

Francois Divet, who leads ILS asset management at the firm, told APB Mandate that he sees, “Strong appetite coming from private banks in Asia.”

Divet said that private bank clients in Asia make up around 75% of the $125 million Asia focused cat bond strategy run by AXA Investment Managers. He also noted that private banking clients are interested in ILS investments in Europe as well.

Asian investors have been watching the fallout from recent hurricane events closely, as the first really major test of catastrophe bond and ILS fund managers. So far our contacts at Asia-based investors seem comfortable with the way the losses are being dealt with and all agree that if the ILS market responds well to recent hurricane losses it can only help to increase the asset classes attractiveness in the Asia region.