Hedge fund reinsurer news

Reinsurance and insurance specialist Neon, a subsidiary of the Great American Insurance Group, has hired Chris Conway to its Bermuda property reinsurance team, an underwriter with experience of multiple capital structures, including collateralized, ILS and the hedge fund reinsurer strategy.

Greenlight Re, the hedge fund backed reinsurance firm that counts David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital hedge fund as its investment manager, has hired Simon Burton as its new permanent Chief Executive Officer.

The contribution made by total return reinsurance vehicle KaylaRe Ltd. to insurance and reinsurance specialist Enstar is growing, as the strategy begins to scale up offering efficiency benefits across the business for the firm.

Total return reinsurance vehicle Watford Re, which is part-owned and operated by re/insurer Arch Capital Group alongside asset manager Highbridge Principal Strategies, has seen relatively stable performance in the first-quarter of 2017, although a slightly higher loss ratio dented its results a little.

Bermuda based insurance and reinsurance group AXIS Capital Holdings Limited has recognised a significant increase in the fee income it earned from its work with what it terms “strategic capital partners” in the first-quarter of 2017 and ceded significantly more premiums to third-party capital as well.

David Govrin, previously of Berkshire Hathaway and formerly a founder of a capital markets focused intermediary, has joined Third Point Reinsurance (USA) Ltd. as its executive vice president in charge of underwriting.

Fidelis Insurance, the dual underwriting and investment-oriented insurance and reinsurance firm launched by Richard Brindle, is to secure access to property catastrophe reinsurance business from the Lloyd’s market through a quota-share arrangement with Novae Group.

Hedge fund reinsurance firms have largely failed to produce the investment returns expected of them over the last few years, as financial market jitters hit their portfolios, but for A.M. Best the underwriting is key no matter the desire to produce a total-return.

At the end of 2016 total return reinsurance vehicle KaylaRe Ltd., launched by Enstar, Hillhouse Capital Management, and Stone Point Capital recently, already had $350 million of investments in a fund managed by Hillshouse, thanks to reinsurance transactions with Enstar subsidiaries.

John Berger is to step down from the Chief Executive Officer role at Bermuda based hedge fund backed reinsurance firm Third Point Re from March, with Robert Bredahl the current President and Chief Operating Officer set to succeed him.