$30m Koi Re 2025-1 private catastrophe bond notes issued by Sailfish Re Ltd.

Bermuda-domiciled special purpose insurer Sailfish Re Ltd. has issued a $30 million tranche of private catastrophe bond notes for an unknown sponsor, under a Koi Re Series 2025-1 issuance, Artemis has learned.

Sailfish Re Ltd. was incorporated in late 2022 and registered in Bermuda as an unrestricted SPI back in January 2023, so it is a structure that can enter into collateralized reinsurance contracts with multiple counterparties.

Since then, we haven’t seen any private catastrophe bonds come through the Sailfish Re Ltd. structure, until now.

We’ve learned that Sailfish Re Ltd. seems to be connected in some way to specialist insurance management company Strategic Risk Solutions (SRS).

It turned out that while SRS manages Sailfish Re it is a Lockton Re vehicle that it uses to enable clients to more efficiently access sources of collateralized reinsurance capacity from the capital markets.

Update: The sponsor of this Koi Re private catastrophe bond was Centauri Insurance and Lilypad Insurance. Read more in this update.

This is the first arrangement we’ve seen from Sailfish Re Ltd., so it could be the first full securitization under the structure, although privately placed.

Sailfish Re Ltd. has issued a single $30 million tranche of Koi Re Series 2025-1 Class A notes, we understand.

Those notes will have been sold to insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors and the proceeds used to collateralize a reinsurance or retrocession agreement, as is typical with these more private cat bond lite type deals.

We’ve learned that Lockton Re Capital Markets, the specialist banking and ILS arm of the independent broking group, has acted as the structuring agent and bookrunner for this Koi Re 2025-1 private cat bond issuance.

It’s notable that this is the first time Lockton Re Capital Markets has ever featured in our Deal Directory as the structuring agent and bookrunner for a transaction, having only once appeared before as co-manager for a 2024 Ramble Re issuance for Arch Capital.

Koi Re is a segregated account of the Sailfish Re Ltd. unrestricted SPI. The $30 million of Koi Re 2025-12 notes issued by Sailfish Re Ltd. were issued as private 4(a)2 notes and placed with institutional investors, we understand.

We’re told the notes will provide an as yet unknown sponsor with reinsurance or retrocession across a one year term to June 1st 2026, with maturity due on the 5th of that month, although we do not have any details of the sponsor, the covered perils or regions, at this time.

We assume the notes will support a transfer of natural catastrophe risks from the sponsor to capital markets investors, as property cat is the most typical risk to see in catastrophe bond form, although we cannot be 100% certain yet. We also do not have any details of the coverage structure or risk transfer triggers used.

We do know that the private cat bond was issued on a zero-coupon basis, as discount notes, and they were issued at a price of 90.5% of par, we have been told.

Should further details emerge on this first private cat bond, Koi Re 2025-1, that we’ve seen from Sailfish Re Ltd. we will update you.

We’ve added this roughly $30 million Sailfish Re Ltd. (Koi Re – Series 2025-1) private cat bond transaction to the Artemis Deal Directory, and what data points we have on the arrangement will be included in our catastrophe bond and ILS market statistics.