Best of Artemis, week ending 3rd February 2013

The primary catastrophe bond issuance market remains quiet, which is a little unusual for the time of year, but private cat bond Skyline Re has closed, upsized and achieved attractive pricing. As always, you can read every market news story and article on the Artemis news blog, subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update and for your convenience here are the ten most popular news articles from the last seven days on Artemis.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 3rd February 2013:

1. 2012 a unique year for the insurance-linked securities market: Swiss Re
   The insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond market experienced a banner year in 2012, according to the latest market update report published by reinsurer Swiss Re.
2. NZ Superannuation Fund to increase allocation to catastrophe bonds and ILS
   The New Zealand Superannuation Fund, a fund for the state-run retirement benefit (pension) available to all working New Zealanders, already has an allocation to cat bonds in its alternative investment portfolio but is considering increasing it further.
3. Hannover Re backed insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund open to investors
   The insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund management operation, Leine Investments, backed by German reinsurer Hannover Re is now up and running and open to investors.
4. Kalista Global launches index-based El Nino re/insurance cover
   Bermuda based insurance and reinsurance services firm Kalista Global has launched a new parametric product offering which it is calling ENSO-based Parametric Cover (EPC for short).
5. Skyline Re private cat bond completes at $61.2m for sponsor Cincinnati Insurance
   The Skyline Re Ltd. (Series 2013-1) private catastrophe bond placement has been successfully completed. The transaction upsized from the $50m it was initially marketed at to complete at $72m of limit, with $61.2m of cat bond notes issued.
6. December second strongest month of 2012 for insurance-linked security fund returns
   Demonstrating the insurance-linked security and reinsurance-linked investment markets resilience to bounce back from events of the magnitude of hurricane Sandy, the average ILS fund returned, as measured by the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index, a very impressive 1% in December.
7. While 2012 catastrophe bond issuance was high it still didn’t satisfy investor demand: Willis
   Willis Capital Markets & Advisory’s (WCMA) cat bond market report says that while 2012 was a great year for primary issuance of catastrophe bonds, the volume coming to market was insufficient to satisfy strong demand from investors.
8. Pillar Capital and CEO Chris McKeown part ways
   Pillar Capital Holdings Limited, the Bermuda-based ILS and reinsurance-linked investment manager which was formerly known as Juniperus Capital has announced a change to its senior management as it parts ways with its CEO of less than eight months
9. Cat bond pricing shows investor concern over Sandy and Successor X V-F4
   Some of the latest pricing indications for secondary catastrophe bonds show that investors have real concerns that the final industry loss total from hurricane Sandy could be sufficiently high to trigger the Successor X Ltd. (Series 2011-3) Class V-F4 notes.
10. Hedge funds and private equity funds increasingly investing in re/insurance: Appleby
    Global law firm Appleby said in a recent update that it is seeing increasing levels of investment by hedge funds and private equity funds in insurance and reinsurance vehicles.

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This is by no means all of our articles from the last week, just the most popular among our readers. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update.

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