Aberdeen Asset Management ups Blue Capital fund stake

Major investment manager Aberdeen Asset Management has increased its stake in the listed reinsurance and insurance linked securities (ILS) investment fund, the Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund, to over 5% with the acquisition of almost 2 million more shares.

Through its Aberdeen Asset Managers Limited unit the investment manager has taken its holding in the London and Bermuda listed Blue Capital reinsurance fund from 8,179,555 to 10,029,555 shares, representing 5.61% of the fund’s share capital.

Aberdeen Asset Management, which has somewhere north of $374 billion of assets under management and advice across its global group, holds its stake in the Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund across a variety of multi-asset class investment funds and mandates it manages on behalf of clients.

Aberdeen has had a liking for ILS and reinsurance linked assets for some time, only last year adding a new U.S. mutual fund and a UCITS one that both allow catastrophe bonds and other ILS assets as part of their portfolio mix.

However accessing reinsurance linked investments through managers such as Blue Capital enables Aberdeen to bring the less liquid collateralised reinsurance assets into its multi-asset class portfolios, in this case through a liquid, stock exchange listed share class investments.

The Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund remains one of only a few opportunities in ILS that can be more easily accessed by investors, due to its stock exchange listing and the liquidity that provides, which proves attractive to large, traditional managers of multi-asset class funds such as Aberdeen as they add a source of low correlated and stable returns to their strategies.