ILS Diversified Ltd., first insurance linked fund-of-funds launches

ORIGINAL PUBLICATION HERE

ILS Diversified Ltd. the first fund-of-funds in the insurance linked investments market solely investing in insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds to achieve a return more in-line with the market is being launched on April 1st by ILS Advisers.

Readers will be familiar with ILS Advisers as the firm behind the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index, an equally weighted index of 33 constituent ILS funds which tracks their performance and provides a good benchmark for how the ILS market is performing.

Risk transfer, insurance, cat bonds highlighted in climate change report

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The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, published today, highlights the important role that risk transfer, insurance and reinsurance, instruments like catastrophe bonds and weather index insurance have to play in resilience efforts.

The report, titled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, from Working Group II of the IPCC, is perhaps the strongest warning to date that the effects of climate change are already occurring on all continents and across the oceans.

The report shows that the world is not, in many cases, prepared for the resulting risks and impacts of a changing climate, but says that there are opportunities to respond to such risks, though the risks will be difficult to manage with high levels of warming.

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Belarusbank: Special focus on Belarus-UK financial cooperation

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Top managers of Belarusbank meet with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipoteniart of the United KIngdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Belarus Bruce Bucknell.

The parties discussed cooperation between Belarus and the UK, paying special attention to collaboration between Belarusian and British companies, the support of Belarusian export and direct foreign investments in the Belarusian economy. One of the issues on the meeting’s agenda was the planned foundation of Belarus-UK Business Cooperation Council, which will consist of representatives of financial institutions and insurance companies from both countries. Presently cooperation between the two countries lies within the domain of the British-Belarusian Chamber of Commerce. The foundation of the Council is expected to raise the bilateral business cooperation to a brand new level.

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A Royal Day to remember

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The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh visit Lloyd’s to unveil a plaque commemorating the market’s 325th anniversary.

Lloyd’s staff, underwriters, brokers and members gathered in the Underwriting Room to greet Her Majesty with a resounding cheer. Lloyd’s chairman John Nelson and Chief Executive Inga Beale led the Royal Party into the Room, and Lloyd’s famous Lutine Bell was rung twice to mark the occasion.

Traditionally the Lutine Bell, has been rung to herald important announcements – it was last rung to mark the birth of baby Prince George.

Oxbridge Re IPO raises $26.4m for collateralized reinsurance operations

ORIGINAL PUBLICATION HERE

Cayman Islands based fully-collateralized reinsurance company Oxbridge Re has raised $26.4m from its initial public offering (IPO) of shares to help finance the next stage of growth for the reinsurer.

Oxbridge Re, which we wrote about last week when we covered the fact it was seeking a listing, sold 4,884,650 units at its IPO, each consisting of one ordinary share and one warrant to purchase one ordinary share, at a price of $6 per unit. The collateralized reinsurer raised aggregate net proceeds from its IPO of around $26.4m after the deduction of placement agent fees and estimated offering expenses.

The number of share warrants sold was above expectations as Oxbridge Re had previously said it expected to sell between 1.7m and 4.25m share warrants to investors. The price per unit was at the middle of expectations of the range of between $5 and $7, so overall the IPO has been very successful for Oxbridge Re, with the capital raised being towards the upper end of the firms expectations.

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Forecaster Expects Another Quiet Hurricane Season

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ngiThe 2014 Atlantic Hurricane season is likely to be less active than normal, producing fewer powerful storms than average and bringing below-normal risk to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and Caribbean Sea, according to an early forecast from Houston-based ImpactWeather.

he forecasters said the development of an El Nino by July or August will limit the number of tropical storms in the Atlantic Basin to 10, including four hurricanes, one of them major (Category 3 or higher). Those forecast numbers would make the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season significantly less active than the seasonal average of 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

Collateralized reinsurer Oxbridge Re seeks NASDAQ IPO listing

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A Cayman Islands based fully-collateralized reinsurance company, Oxbridge Re, is seeking to raise up to $29.75m from an initial public offering of shares on the NASDAQ, offering investors another interesting way to access reinsurance linked returns.

Oxbridge Re Holdings Limited is a Cayman Islands domiciled reinsurance holding company which launched in April 2013 to provide reinsurance solutions to property and casualty insurers primarily located in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S. The firm underwrites fully collateralized reinsurance business through a reinsurer subsidiary, Oxbridge Reinsurance Limited.

Oxbridge Re filed to sell and list between 1.7m and 4.25m share warrants to investors, with the firm expecting a price per share of between $5 and $7 giving it a potential maximum capital raise at the top end of expectations of $29.75m. The shares sold in this initial public offering will be listed on the NASDAQ Capital Market, for which listing approval has already been received.

Parametric ‘cat in a box’ Israel earthquake reinsurance deal completed

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A first of its kind Israel earthquake parametric reinsurance transaction has been brought to market successfully by reinsurance firm Munich Re and capital markets reinsurance broker arm Aon Benfield Securities for Israeli insurer I.D.I.

The innovative transaction uses a parametric ‘cat in a box’ solution, which would enable any potential loss event to be easily calculated and any claim payout to be made rapidly.

The beneficiary of the reinsurance protection is Israeli insurance and financial services company Israel Direct Insurance (I.D.I.) Company Limited, which has secur$14m (NIS 50m) of protection from the transaction.

Swedish ILS manager Entropics launches. Cat bond fund to launch in April

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The first insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund manager based in Scandinavia has now launched. Entropics Asset Management AB announced itself today and is set to launch its first investment strategy, a catastrophe bond focused fund, in April.

Entropics Asset Management AB said today that it has recently filed its application to become a manager of investment assets with the Swedish financial supervisory board (Finansinspektionen).

Entropics aims to target the Swedish private and institutional investor market primarily, but may look outside to other Scandinavian countries for investors in future. Its first investment strategy launch will be a UCITS compliant cat bond fund, putting it among the first ten investment managers of a UCITS ILS strategy in the world