Lombard Odier Investment Managers

Company profile:

Lombard Odier Investment Managers is the independent asset management business of private banking group Lombard Odier, focused on institutional investors, third-party distributors and financial intermediaries.

Founded in 1796, Lombard Odier is the oldest private bank in Geneva and also one of the largest in Switzerland and the rest of Europe.

In August 2015 Lombard Odier IM hired an insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond investment team. The first strategy, the UCITS compliant LO Funds – CAT Bond was launched in February 2016.

Team size and structure:

ILS focused team of four led by Dr. Gregor Gawron, Head of Insurance Linked Securities. The Lombard Odier IM ILS strategies team consists of portfolio manager Simon Vuille (previously of Aeris Capital), portfolio manager Marc Brogli (previously at Dynapartners) and Stephan Gaschen, (an analytics and modeling specialist with experience in reinsurance, private banking and ILS). Between them, the ILS team has over 50 years of combined experience in financial and insurance markets.

Number of strategies (how many funds, sidecars or strategies):

1

Strategy:

LO Funds – CAT Bonds is an actively managed UCITS fund that invests in a diversified portfolio of catastrophe bonds (“CAT Bonds”). CAT Bonds are financial securities that transfer insurance risk to the capital markets. The investor in such securities receives a coupon made up of a floating money market component and an insurance premium. The premium compensates the investor for bearing the risk of a partial or total capital loss resulting from the occurrence of extraordinary predefined events such as an earthquake or a hurricane. Risk management is performed by fund managers at the portfolio level, alongside independent teams who monitor and manage investment as well as operational risk. The fund’s long-only strategy has been in place since February 2016. Financial derivative instruments are used for hedging purposes only. The fund does not invest in instruments linked to life settlements.