CATCo listed reinsurance fund passes $500m on $46m capital raise

The London and Bermuda listed CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd., which is managed by reinsurance and retrocessional reinsurance linked investment management firm Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd., has raised another $46 million for the mid-year renewals, taking the fund’s total assets past $500 million.

Ten days ago we reports that Markel CATCo was seeking to raise additional capital into its listed retrocessional reinsurance and ILS fund, as the manager sees opportunities to deploy more capacity with both existing and new counterparties at the upcoming mid-year renewals.

The fund today announced that it has issued 35,606,039 Ordinary Shares at a price of $1.2889 per share, so a total capital raise of $45.9 million, which the company said was “in order to satisfy demand that cannot be met through the secondary market.”

James Keyes, Chairman of the Company, commented on the capital raise; “The Board of CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd. is delighted to have had such a positive response to this capital raising, which has been significantly over-subscribed. This increases total net assets of the Company through $500 million.”

In fact, with 391,666,424 Ordinary Shares now in issue and at the currently listed share price of $1.30 per share (at 2.50pm on 25th May), the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund now has total assets of just slightly under $510 million.

The near $46 million of raised capital will be added to other capital raised for the mid-year reinsurance renewals and Markel CATCo’s existing $4.3 billion earlier of assets it had reached earlier this year.

That will provide Markel CATCo with an increased capacity to face the retrocession and reinsurance market with, offering it another chance to grow its position as one of the leading retrocession providers in the market.

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