Best of Artemis, week ending January 2nd 2022

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending January 2nd 2022, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

Ten most read articles on Artemis.bm, week ending January 2nd 2022:

1. Nephila Capital’s MGA Velocity Risk sold to funds managed by Oaktree
   Velocity Risk Underwriters LLC, the managing general agency (MGA) operation established by reinsurance, catastrophe, climate and weather risk-linked investment manager Nephila Capital, has been acquired by funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P.
2. Misaligned retro priorities drive last minute renewal challenges
   A misalignment of priorities has led to some last minute challenges for buyers of retrocession at the January 1st 2022 reinsurance renewals, as ceding reinsurers have in some cases been left disappointed with capacity they had targeted drying up.
3. A hard market “anomaly” as capital withdraws: Amwins
   Insurance origination and distribution specialist Amwins has highlighted how unusual the hard market in property risks is at this time, especially for catastrophe exposed properties, as rather than a lack of capital driving rates higher, it is risk aversion that is driving harder rates.
4. AIG’s Validus secures Tailwind Re retro cat bond renewal at $400m in size
   Validus, the Bermuda headquartered reinsurance underwriting arm of AIG, has now secured $400 million of retrocession from its latest catastrophe bond, as the Tailwind Re Ltd. (Series 2022-1) renewal transaction failed to reach the upper-end target, but all four tranches of notes were priced at attractive coupon levels.
5. Stone Ridge has “highest forward conviction” for reinsurance: CEO Stevens
   Ross Stevens, the CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, a New York based asset manager with a focus on alternative risk premia strategies including reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS), has declared that right now his firm has the highest forward conviction on the reinsurance sector since its launch in 2013.
6. Pennsylvania schools pension (PSERS) divesting from ILS in shift to equities
   A long-standing pension investor in insurance-linked securities (ILS), the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) is planning a withdrawal from the sector, as part of a planned divestment of all absolute return strategies.
7. George Town Re silver jubilee – $135bn of catastrophe bonds tracked
   December marked the 25th anniversary, or silver jubilee, of the issuance of a landmark catastrophe bond transaction, the George Town Re Ltd. deal, since when Artemis has tracked almost $135 billion of cat bond issuance.
8. Ledger places $300m+ of premium into capital markets in 2021
   Ledger Investing, the insurance technology (insurtech) and insurance-linked securities (ILS) focused company, said that over the course of 2021 it placed more than $300 million of gross premium directly into the capital markets, as it continued to build out its risk securitization platform.
9. MS Amlin repeats Asian cat risk sidecar with $37.5m Phoenix 2 Re
   MS Amlin has returned to the capital markets for a repeat of its landmark Asian property catastrophe risk collateralised reinsurance sidecar arrangement, with a $37.5 million issuance of Series 2022-1 notes through newly established Singapore SPV Phoenix 2 Re Pte. Ltd.
10. Research suggests poleward shift for hurricanes & typhoons due to climate change
    New research suggests hurricane and typhoon activity may shift further towards the poles, with tropical cyclone zones expanding and as a result hurricanes and typhoons occupying a broader range of latitudes in future, all because of climate change.

This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular among our readers over the last seven days. There were 16 new articles published in the last week. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story subscribe to our weekly email newsletter which is delivered every Wednesday.

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