PICC P&C appears to have returned for its second Great Wall Re catastrophe bond

Chinese domestic insurer PICC Property and Casualty Company Limited seems to have returned to sponsor its second catastrophe bond using its Hong Kong domiciled special purpose insurer Great Wall Re Limited, as information of a new tranche of notes has appeared albeit with very limited details available at this time.

According to securities market data seen by Artemis, Great Wall Re Limited has issued a tranche of floating rate notes in recent days, with them pricing on September 30th and being set for maturity in roughly one year’s time.

PICC Property and Casualty Company Limited (PICC P&C) sponsored its first catastrophe bond back in late December 2022.

In that debut instance, PICC P&C sponsored a $32.5 million Great Wall Re Limited cat bond deal, with the notes providing it with a roughly three-year source of fully-collateralized earthquake reinsurance in China, funded by investors from the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

That deal became the third catastrophe bond issuance to be domiciled in and issued out of the Hong Kong market, with the SPI named Great Wall Re Limited registered there which allowed the sponsor to also benefit from Hong Kong’s ILS Grant Scheme.

That first Great Wall Re cat bond utilised an indemnity trigger and provided its earthquake reinsurance protection to PICC P&C on a per-occurrence basis and the company called the inaugural cat bond it had sponsored “an important measure to build a dual-pillar risk diversification system of reinsurance and insurance risk securitization.”

Now, it appears as if PICC P&C has returned to the cat bond market, with a new tranche of notes issued by Great Wall Re Limited and being featured on certain securities market data services.

As we said, information is extremely minimal at this time, although we suspect that more may become available in due course.

The new tranche of Great Wall Re Limited catastrophe bond notes, presumably a Series 2026 issuance, priced on September 30th, the securities market information states, which may mean the offering has yet to settle as it can take up to one week from pricing at times.

The information states that maturity of this new tranche of Great Wall Re cat bond notes is due September 30th 2027, so presumably provide roughly one year of reinsurance to the presumed sponsor PICC P&C.

It’s possible these cat bond notes have been issued privately placed, issued as zero-coupon, or discount notes, although it’s hard to be sure given the limited information available to us at this time.

Given the very minimal information we’ve seen, we have to stress that we cannot confirm anything additional, only to say a tranche of notes from Hong Kong domiciled Great Wall Re Limited has been detailed on the data service, with the aforementioned pricing and maturity dates.

However, it does seem safe to assume that the covered peril or perils will likely be certain natural catastrophe risks in China, given the sponsor is expected to be PICC P&C. In addition, there’s a strong chance it will be an indemnity triggered cat bond, like the first Great Wall Re transaction, although that is not possible to corroborate at this time.

As and when we can confirm this issuance, or any further details about it, we will update you.

Hong Kong has now been the domicile for six catastrophe bond issuances, including this new deal.

First was the $30 million Greater Bay Re Ltd. (Series 2021-1) deal sponsored by mainland and state supported reinsurance giant China Re Group in September 2021.

That was followed by local reinsurance firm Peak Re’s first cat bond in June 2022, the $150 million Black Kite Re Limited (Series 2022-1) deal. Then PICC P&C’s first $32.5 million Great Wall Re Limited. After which Taiping Re sponsored its debut $35 million Silk Road Re Limited catastrophe bond.

Most recently, Peak Re returned for its second, a $50 million Black Kite Re Limited (Series 2025-1) transaction and now this second Great Wall Re has emerged.

In addition to what now appears to be six cat bond issuances out of Hong Kong, the Special Administrative Region has also seen a number of World Bank IBRD catastrophe bonds listed on its exchange, although those were not issued using Hong Kong SPI’s.

We have added this new transaction to our extensive catastrophe bond Deal Directory under an entry for Great Wall Re Limited (2026). We will update the entry as any new information emerges.