Artex Axcell Re issues ~$40.6m Japanese private catastrophe bond

Another private catastrophe bond issuance has come to light, as an Artex Risk Solutions owned and operated entity has issued a roughly US $40.6 million Artex Axcell Re (Series FE0003) cat bond lite transaction that being denominated in Japanese Yen suggests the underlying risk transfer arrangement likely covers perils within that country.

It’s the second Japanese Yen denominated private catastrophe bond to be issued by the Artex Axcell Re (Bermuda) Limited transformer and cell facility this year, which is a structure managed and owned by insurance manager and insurance-linked securities (ILS) facilitator Artex Risk Solutions.

This vehicle based in Bermuda has been used regularly over the years for transacting and issuance of private insurance-linked securities (ILS) notes, from collateralized reinsurance to private cat bonds, with the assitance of facilitator Artex.

This new issuance sees Artex Axcell Re (Bermuda) Limited, under its ILS Note Program II, having issued JPY 6 billion (roughly US $40.6 million) in Series FE0003 notes.

These new private cat bond notes have a due date of July 23rd 2027, so their coverage runs for approaching two years it seems.

Given the Japanese Yen denomination of these private cat bond notes, we again make the assumption that they will cover a Japanese peril, likely property catastrophe risk in nature, for an unknown Japanese sponsor or entity active there.

The JPY 6 billion of Series FE0003 private cat bond notes issued by Artex Axcell Re have been privately placed with qualified institutional investors and are now listed on the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX).

As with every private ILS or cat bond deal that we uncover, until additional information comes to light we make the assumption these feature the securitization of a property catastrophe reinsurance or retrocession risk contract, in this case covering perils in Japan.

Back in July, the same Artex structure issued a roughly US $4 million Artex Axcell Re (Series FE0002) transaction that was also JPY denominated.

With this latest private cat bond, or private insurance-linked security (ILS) arrangement, annual issuance in 2025 so far of these types of deals tracked by Artemis has now reached almost $436 million.

As a result, the amount of private cat bonds we’ve tracked in 2025 is approaching the full-year volume of deals we tracked last year.

You can analyse catastrophe bond issuance by type of deal in this chart, which you can filter using the key to view only private cat bond issuance.

You can view details on every private cat bond we’ve tracked in the Artemis Catastrophe Bond Deal Directory. Use the filters to view only private cat bonds (filter by type).

You can also track private catastrophe bond issuance by year in this interactive chart.

We’ve added this roughly $40.6 million Artex Axcell Re (Series FE0003) 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.