Swiss Re combines ILS investment management operations under Guatteri leadership

Global reinsurance giant Swiss Re is bringing together its insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment management operations under the Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Investment Advisors Corporation (SRILIAC) brand and the combined ILS management unit will be led by long-standing executive Mariagiovanna Guatteri.

Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Investment Advisors Corporation (SRILIAC) was set up by Swiss Re in 2022 as an SEC-registered investment adviser with a focus on offering insurance-linked securities investment funds and services to qualified institutional investors, primarily in catastrophe bonds.

SRILIAC will now in time assume the operations of Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Investment Management AG (SRILIM), which is the asset management unit out of which Swiss Re offers its Core Nat Cat Fund under 1863 Fund Ltd., a private ILS strategy that offers a fund structure which enables investors to align with the reinsurance giant and invest into its natural catastrophe book.

The consolidated investment management team under SRILIAC will be led by Mariagiovanna Guatteri, currently the CEO and CIO of SRILIAC and also the Chair of SRILIM.

Swiss Re hopes that by combining its ILS investment management operations in this way, it can provides investors with simpler access to its entire suite of ILS fund products through a single manager entity and also facilitate further product innovation.

It means investor clients will be able to access the full range of Swiss Re ILS fund strategies through one manager and one due-diligence process, the company explained.

The hope is also to create hybrid ILS investment products, bringing together elements from different ILS structures to broaden the SRILIAC offering for investors as well.

SRILIAC also co-manages the GAM Star Cat Bond Fund, the UCITS strategy it started collaborating on with GAM earlier this year.

Guatteri has worked at global reinsurance firm Swiss Re since 2003 and has over 20 years’ experience in cat bond portfolio management and natural catastrophe modelling.

She has managed Swiss Re’s proprietary ILS investments, as well as strategies featuring third-party capital from institutional investors, across many of Swiss Re’s ILS-related investment strategies.

Guatteri commented on the news, “Swiss Re is now one of the world’s largest ILS investment managers. Bringing together the different elements of our ILS asset management offering into a single platform will provide a significant advantage to institutional investors, who will be able to access all of Swiss Re’s ILS expertise and the full product range in one place. We will also focus the combined team’s efforts on product innovation.”

Across the Swiss Re ILS investment management operations, including its co-management of the GAM Star UCITS cat bond fund, around $7 billion of assets are currently managed. This includes Swiss Re’s own investment into its fund strategies, as well as assets contained in collateralized reinsurance sidecars such as Sector Re and the Viaduct Re sidecar backed by PGGM.

Third party investor sourced cat bond and ILS assets under management are estimated to be closer to $5.1 billion at this time, again including the GAM UCITS fund.

View information on many dedicated ILS fund managers, as well as reinsurers offering ILS style investment opportunities, such as Swiss Re, in our Insurance-Linked Securities Investment Managers & Funds Directory.