Asagao VI – White Rock Insurance (SAC) Ltd.

This is the sixth private catastrophe bond in the Asagao series of parametric Japanese earthquake deals.

Now, an Asagao VI deal has been issued, we’ve been told by sources, but at a much smaller size of only JPY 600 million, which is approximately US $4.6 million at today’s rate.

As with all of the Asagao deals so far, we’re told Japanese earthquake risks are the peril that features and it’s assumed this is again being transferred on a parametric basis, which was the case with the other Asagao cat bond deals.

Aon Insurance Managers will have acted as the insurance manager for this new Asagao private ILS deal, facilitating issuance of the roughly $4.6 million of Asagao VI notes using the White Rock structure to place the private insurance-linked securities (ILS) (or private catastrophe bond notes) with investors for an unknown Japanese catastrophe risk exposed cedent.

We assume that Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions and likely also its ILS specialist unit Aon Securities will have been involved in the transaction as well.

White Rock Insurance (SAC) Ltd. has issued the ¥ 600 million (JPY) of Principal At-Risk notes (which is roughly US $4.6m as of the issuance date), acting on behalf of its segregated account named T128 Asagao VI (which we’ve shortened to just Asagao VI for its entry in our catastrophe bond Deal Directory).

The notes have been issued through the White Rock Insurance (SAC) Ltd. ILS Note Program, which is a program for the issuance of privately placed catastrophe bonds, or other ILS arrangements, as well as their offering and sale to institutional investors.

The new Asagao VI notes are scheduled for maturity at April 28th 2024, we’re told.

It’s unclear precisely when these notes were issued, whether they fell into the first or second quarter at this stage. But being relatively small this time around, we’ve added the Asagao VI private cat bond as a first-quarter cat bond deal.