Renaissance Re raises additional $100m capital for DaVinciRe

Capital raising by Bermudian reinsurers has been in the news frequently over the past few weeks as they seek to raise capital and capacity to take advantage of a capacity squeeze after the disastrous start to the year and capitalise on the possibility of rising rates. Renaissance Re have become the latest to announce an increase in capacity, via a $100m equity capital raising venture for their DaVinciRe subsidiary.

DaVinciRe Holdings Ltd. has completed an equity capital raise of $100m from both new and existing investment sources. The capital will be deployed to support the ongoing underwriting of DaVinci Reinsurance Ltd. who write property catastrophe reinsurance and some classes of specialty reinsurance.

Neill A. Currie, Chief Executive Officer of RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., stated: “We are pleased to announce the closing of this financing for DaVinci. As the industry digests the ramifications of the events of this year and refines tools to better assess risk exposure, our capital strength and our ability to access and deploy third party capital position us well to match reinsurance capacity to the needs of our clients.”

Bermuda’s reinsurers seem to be well positioned to take advantage of the demand for reinsurance at higher prices in the wake of the significant losses experienced this year. Other capital raising activities we’ve covered recently include; Validus’ launch of the AlphaCat Re 2011 sidecar yesterday, Alterra’s formation of the New Point IV sidecar and Lancashire’s launch of the Accordion sidecar. Separately CATCo has been busy raising additional funds for their retro and collateralised reinsurance funds. We expect to see further efforts to raise capital over the coming months as reinsurers seek to take advantage of market conditions.