No changes to Clariden Leu ILS funds after Credit Suisse integration announcement

Two days ago it was announced that Credit Suisse would be fully integrating its Swiss private banking offshoot Clariden Leu into its organisation. Clariden Leu, who operate a number of insurance-linked securities investment funds, came into existence through the merger of five private banking subsidiaries of Credit Suisse. Now the parent company is pulling them back into the fold, aiming to achieve further growth in private banking and cost savings.

The full press release on the integration can be found here.

As Clariden Leu are a high-profile provider of insurance-linked securities investment opportunities, and also bring innovative solutions such as their ‘cat bond lite‘ to market, we approached them for some information on the integration and whether they felt it would impact their ILS operations.

Michael Stahel, Head of Insurance-Linked Investments at Clariden Leu provided us with a statement on the integration:

What does this mean for the Clariden Leu Insurance-Linked Investments Boutique and the Clariden Leu Insurance-Linked Funds and Mandates?

With a 10-year track record and current assets under management of USD 2.5bn, Clariden Leu’s Insurance Linked Investments team is recognized as one of the leading managers worldwide in this asset class. Firstly – and most importantly – the portfolio management team is fully committed to continue managing all insurance-linked funds and mandates with the same diligence, investment principles and processes as over the past years. We will continue to serve our investors with our state-of-the art insurance-linked investment strategies. We will ensure timely communication once we are able to disclose the new setup of our Insurance-Linked Investments Boutique.

We would like to emphasize that the new setup does not change our appetite for participation on insurance-linked securities (cat bonds) or our secondary market trading activities. Concerning outstanding financial insurance contracts (reinsurance, retro, and ILWs) that have been underwritten on behalf of Clariden Leu’s various funds and mandates, we would further like to emphasize that all transactions remain fully collateralized and the new setup of our Insurance-Linked Investments Boutique will not change any of the contractual responsibilities and obligations that have been assumed via our Segregated Account Companies on behalf of these funds and mandates.

So there should be no noticeable change and the ILS team at Clariden Leu will continue to operate as normal. Perhaps this will actually help them to grow as they will be better integrated into their larger parent organisation and have greater access to their resources and facilities. We assume that at some point during the integration period there will be some administrative changes, such as the fund names, but for their clients, investors and those looking to access the ILS and catastrophe bond investment space the service Clariden Leu provides won’t be interrupted.