SCOR’s $150m Atlas IX cat bond priced at lowest end of guidance

French reinsurer SCOR’s latest $150m U.S. wind, U.S. and Canada earthquake catastrophe bond Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2015-1) has now been priced, and it settled right at the lowest end of the initial guidance, reflecting continued investor appetite for ILS risks.

The Atlas IX Capital 2015-1 cat bond transaction launched almost a fortnight ago and sees reinsurance firm SCOR looking to secure $150m of fully-collateralized retrocessional reinsurance protection for U.S. named storm, U.S. earthquake and Canada earthquake risks. Protection will be on an industry loss trigger and aggregate basis across a four-year risk period.

The single tranche of Series 2015-1 Class A notes launched with price guidance of 7% to 7.75%, which subsequently dropped and narrowed to 7% to 7.25% earlier this week.

Now, we understand, the deal has been priced at the low-end at 7%. With an expected loss of 3.43% this puts the risk investors will be assuming at a multiple of slightly over 2 times the expected loss, a low multiple but aligned with where other recent deals are pricing.

The Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2015-1) catastrophe bond is expected to complete next week, at which time SCOR will have eleven cat bonds using a variation of the Atlas name listed in our directory of ILS and cat bond transactions, read all about the transaction there.