Catastrophe bond fund news

Icosa Investments has been launched as new catastrophe bond focused asset manager, by co-founders the former Twelve Capital executive Florian Steiger and Swiss financial services and capital markets specialist Jordan Nickerson, Artemis has learned.

The total-return of the outstanding catastrophe bond market in 2023 reached a record level of 19.69%, according to full-year data from the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices.

Demonstrating the strong performance of catastrophe bond investments in 2023, Tenax Capital, the London based hedge fund investment manager that operates a UCITS cat bond strategy, is reporting a 17.9% net return in EUR for its fund for 2023.

Stone Ridge Asset Management, the New York based asset manager with an alternative risk premia focus, made well over $1 billion in reinsurance trading profits over the course of 2023, with record returns delivered to investors by both of its mutual insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund strategies, according to CEO Ross Stevens.

The catastrophe bond and related insurance-linked securities (ILS) market saw activity levels accelerate right the way through the busiest fourth-quarter in its history, resulting in a record year of issuance and market growth, Artemis’ new quarterly market report explains.

Plenum Investments AG, the Zurich-based specialist insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond investment manager, believes that performance for catastrophe bond funds should remain in the double-digits in 2024, at least for USD denominated cat bond fund strategies.

At a time when assets under management (AUM) have been climbing across alternative investment strategies and investors are carefully assessing their allocations and attracted to diversifying assets, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) niche has come out as top performer of the hedge fund world, Preqin has said.

The Plenum Investments Index that tracks the returns of catastrophe bond funds in the UCITS format has now reached over 16% for the last 12-months, while the year-to-date return has now reached 15.2% for 2023 to the end of November.

SCOR Investment Partners, the asset management arm of the French reinsurance group and a manager of insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds, has announced a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) appointment, with long-standing executive Louis Bourrousse taking over the top-position.

Artemis has learned that Florian Steiger, the Head of Cat Bonds at insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance asset manager Twelve Capital, is to depart the firm at the end of the year.