The Calypso Capital Ltd. catastrophe bond issued by AXA Global P&C has closed at a significantly larger size than it was initially marketed at. The transaction began life as a €150m series 2010-1, first offering of class A notes issued under a €1.5 billion principal-at-risk variable-rate note program.
Demonstrating the demand from investors for opportunities to diversify their risks away from the typical U.S. hurricane, this issuance has nearly doubled in size to €275m at closing. Being part of a possible €1.5 billion note program always left room for this deal to grow (as we predicted when we first wrote about Calypso Capital).
Calypso Capital provides AXA Global P&C with cover against European windstorms within Belgium, Denmark, France (excluding overseas territories), Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and the U.K. It is the latest cat bond transaction to use the increasingly popular PERILS AG industry loss index as a measurement and reporting tool.
Standard & Poor’s have confirmed the ‘BB’ rating that they gave the deal when it was marketed.
The successful issuance and the demand experienced for this deal should help to encourage other potential issuers to the cat bond market. European windstorm deals seem to be extremely popular among investors and we expect that other good diversification opportunities (such as Mariah Re Ltd.) will be equally well received.
You can read all about Calypso Capital Ltd. in our previous post here and in our catastrophe bond Deal Directory.
View all of our Artemis Live video interviews and subscribe to our podcast.
All of our Artemis Live insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bonds and reinsurance video content and video interviews can be accessed online.
Our Artemis Live podcast can be subscribed to using the typical podcast services providers, including Apple, Google, Spotify and more.
