Best of Artemis, week ending 7th October 2012

It’s been another busy week for news in the markets we cover here on Artemis. Discussion of insurance and reinsurance as an investment opportunity increases and news of companies seeking to support investors and sponsors goals becomes more frequent. As always, you can read every news story and article on the Artemis news blog and for your convenience these are the ten most popular news articles from the last seven days on Artemis.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 7th October 2012:

1. Has Lloyd’s of London lost favour as a reinsurance-linked investment?
   Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance and reinsurance market, where large amounts of the globes risk comes to be transferred into and between the syndicates and companies operating there. Is it as easy for the oldest reinsurance market in the world to attract external capital?
2. Multi-Strat Re to make it easier for hedge funds to get into reinsurance
   A new company launch could see the next generation of reinsurance-focused hedge fund managers entering the reinsurance space more easily.
3. On catastrophe bonds for Chinese earthquakes
   There has been some discussion of the potential for catastrophe bonds in China for transferring earthquake risks to the capital markets ever since the 6th Annual European Insurance-Linked Securities Conference, held by rating agency Standard & Poor’s in London last week.
4. Third Point Re to partner with Hiscox on catastrophe reinsurance fund
   Bermuda based reinsurer Third Point Re, backed by a hedge fund and institutional investors, are partnering with Hiscox Insurance Company (Bermuda) Limited in the development of their first catastrophe reinsurance fund efforts.
5. MultiCat Mexico 2012 cat bond upsizes a little, pricing drops a lot
   Interest in the catastrophe bond market and demand for new issuance is showing no sign of letting up, as investor sources tell us that the latest cat bond deal to come to market, MultiCat Mexico Ltd. (Series 2012-1), has increased in size a little and the price guidance has been reduced a lot.
6. PCS Catastrophe Loss Index use in cat bond triggers up 43% year-on-year
   Property Claims Services (PCS), a leading source of data on insured property losses from catastrophes in the U.S. and part of the Verisk group of companies, have published their latest quarterly update on the catastrophe bond market.
7. Plenum may target UK with catastrophe bond fund
   Swiss insurance-linked securities investment manager Plenum Investments may target UK retail investors with its catastrophe bond fund if there is sufficient interest to bring the fund there, according to comments from Plenum’s chief executive Rainer Grünig.
8. Ohio Schools pension fund commits $30m to reinsurance & ILS through Nephila
   Another U.S. public body pension fund has committed capital to the reinsurance-linked investment space in recent weeks, as interest in the reinsurance space continues to grow from large pension funds.
9. DCG Iris ILS fund aims to reach £150m through series of share offerings
   DCG Iris have announced that they are going to continue fund-raising with a series of share offerings, the first of which is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
10. Goldman Sachs goes neutral on reinsurance, capital flow into alternatives a factor
    Goldman Sachs have downgraded their sentiment rating on Bermuda based reinsurer RenaissanceRe Holdings from ‘Buy’ to ‘Neutral’ and cited capital inflows to the non-traditional reinsurance sector as one of the contributing factors.

If you’ve missed any of our weekly catch-ups due to being on vacation you can find them all here.

You can subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update.

If you’re looking for details on catastrophe bond and ILS transactions our Deal Directory has more than 260 listed.

If you want to track hurricanes or tropical storms visit our 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season page.