Nephila Capital adds 11% to reach $12.2bn of ILS assets managed

Nephila Capital, the largest investment manager of catastrophe and weather insurance-linked securities (ILS), has increased its total assets under management by roughly 11% so far this year, reaching $12.2 billion of ILS AuM as of the beginning of July 2018.

ILS fund manager assets have been steadily on the rise since the last part of 2017, with the market as a whole adding roughly $20 billion over that period.

Once ILS funds and their investors gained sufficient clarity over the impacts of the major hurricanes and other catastrophe events, they put their plans into action to replenish capital to support trading forwards for their reinsurance and retrocession clients and sought to take advantage of any pricing opportunities that emerged.

Nephila Capital is among those that have continued to grow throughout 2018 as well, as the investment manager started the year with approximately $11 billion of ILS and catastrophe risk linked assets under management, but has now reached a new high at $12.2 billion of assets as of July 1st 2018.

As an ILS asset manager, Nephila has more options than most for deploying new capital, being less restricted to the typical reinsurance cycle than much of the ILS market thanks to its many initiatives to move capital and capacity further up the value-chain towards the sources of catastrophe and weather risk.

Those initiatives along with Nephila Capital’s continuing position as one of the largest peak-zone catastrophe and weather reinsurance markets in the world have clearly supported the manager’s ability to increases its asset base and as a result underwrite more risk this year.

The increase to Nephila Capital’s ILS assets under management (AuM), along with mid-year updates from other ILS fund managers, now means that the top 10 ILS managers in the Artemis Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) Managers & Funds Directory command $68.04 billion of assets between them.

The list as a whole now commands $99.5 billion, moving ever closer to the $100 billion milestone.

The total ILS and reinsurance linked assets of managers and funds included in the Artemis Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) Managers & Funds Directory has now grown by over 23% during 2018 so far, from $80.8 billion as of the start of this year to now sit at $99.5 billion of ILS assets.

We are aware there is some duplication involved and the increase includes the addition of new managers as well. It’s difficult to separate out assets completely to each origination manager, but our ILS Managers and Funds Directory provides a view of the capital base of the ILS market as it currently stands and we hope you find this useful.