ILS funds news, insurance linked securities or ILS fund news

There is one week left to secure a Super Early Bird ticket rate to attend our next catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market conference, ILS Asia 2024, which takes place on July 11th at the Suntec Convention Centre in Singapore.

Insurer and reinsurer Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited, and asset manager PIMCO, have announced the launch of Pando Re Ltd., a Bermuda-based, casualty focused collateralised re/insurer that act as a reinsurance sidecar and help to drive growth of third-party capital and fee income for Aspen Capital Markets.

The Ambassador mutual catastrophe bond fund strategy has continued to grow its assets under management in recent months, adding $63.3 million since we last reported on it, to reach $191 million in net assets under management.

While the pricing of cat bond notes stabilised somewhat in the final quarter of 2023, persistently firm reinsurance and retrocession rates saw investors achieve higher risk-adjusted pricing throughout the year, according to Artemis’ data.

The City National Rochdale Select Strategies Fund, a US mutual insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund focused on investments into industry-loss warranties (ILW’s) and industry-index trigger catastrophe bonds, delivered its strongest annual performance in the last year, with an almost 15.6% return to its investors.

Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. (HSCM), the reinsurance, insurtech, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and transportation focused investment manager, has raised more than $175 million from investment firm StepStone Group and existing investors for the launch of HS Mohawk Fund I LP, its new life insurance-focused continuation fund.

White Mountains CEO Manning Rountree recently explained that the insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds managed by Elementum Advisors delivered 15-20% returns “across the complex” in 2023, a year when his company generated strong returns from its investments into insurance and reinsurance.

The catastrophe bond market continues on its positive trajectory in 2024, with robust demand on both sides of the trade. But with spreads and yields having become more “normalised” in recent months, cat bonds are now much more attractive to potential sponsors, Florian Steiger, CEO of Icosa Investments has said.

New York based alternative risk premia focused investment manager Stone Ridge has now grown its mutual insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund strategy assets under management (AUM) back to above $4 billion for the first time since 2020.

The allocation to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class by the City of Zurich Pension Fund has continued to expand, reaching approximately US $960 million by the end of March 2024, with mandates now with eight investment managers across life and P&C reinsurance investments.