Catastrophe bond fund news

In advance of the end of the quarter, Artemis can now report that issuance of property catastrophe bonds in the first-half of 2023 will close out June at an all-time high for the period of almost $9.7 billion, which beats the full-year total from 2022 and sets a new record for any half-year of cat […]

We’ve learned that the European Commission has now directed financial regulator the European Securities & Markets Authority (ESMA) to study eligible assets for UCITS investment fund strategies, to ensure their suitability, with catastrophe bonds explicitly mentioned.

Catastrophe bond funds in the UCITS format are rapidly approaching a combined $10 billion of assets under management (AUM), with another $372 million added in just the last two months.

Catastrophe bond funds in the UCITS format are averaging approximately 6.20% returns year-to-date in 2023, while over a 12-month horizon the average return is now 3.57%, even accounting for major hurricane Ian’s losses in Florida.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers are beginning to report growing interest from institutional investors, analysts from KBW reported from a Bermuda visit this week.

Reflecting the elevated spreads of catastrophe bonds, after just a few months of this year the return of the Swiss Re catastrophe bond index, perhaps the most widely used benchmark in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) space, is already at its highest level since 2013.

A particularly strong performance through the month of April 2023 now sees catastrophe bond funds in the UCITS format with an average return for the first four months of the year of 5.50%, with both higher and lower-risk cat bond fund strategies faring particularly well during the period.

GAM Holding AG, the parent company to global asset manager GAM Investments, is to be acquired by specialist fund management group Liontrust, with all of its investment funds set to be rebranded, which will presumably include its large GAM Star Cat Bond Fund and other ILS strategies it manages.

For a few weeks now we’ve been hearing rumours and receiving messages from contacts related to the fact the European Securities & Markets Authority (ESMA), a financial regulator, had restarted an exploration of catastrophe bonds and whether they should be an eligible asset for UCITS investment funds.

The first session of the day at our Artemis ILS NYC 2023 conference, held in New York on February 10th 2023, featured industry leaders discussing the catastrophe bond market and their expectations around its future potential.