March 2012/1

London manager Securis Investment Partners has expanded its non-life P&C portfolio at the 1 January renewals.

Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) is joining forces with Bermudian run-off specialist Armour Group to fundraise for a new fund that will target run-off opportunities in the non-catastrophe side of the P&C insurance market.

The average cat bond fund lost money for investors over the course of 2011, according to a Trading Risk survey of returns from a cross-section of dedicated ILS fund managers.

Trading in hurricane options has started strongly in 2012 with $15mn limit traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in January and another $30mn of buy orders understood to be in the market.

The Cayman Islands Stock Exchange (CSX) has listed its 100th cat bond programme and series listing, with the total face value standing at around $8.5bn.

Deutsche Bank's longevity swap with insurer Aegon has tested a new kind of risk transfer structure for the market.

Broker dealers held pricing on the troubled Nelson Re Class G notes stable in March as the defunct Swiss reinsurer Glacier Re once again extended the maturity date on the notes.

An abundant supply of cat bonds for sale on the secondary market pushed pricing to a 12 month low this month.

Two bonds with unusual diversifying risk were circulating the cat bond market as Trading Risk went to press, along with Swiss Re's dual-cedant Combine Re.

The closure of Chubb's fifth cat bond in March took total Q1 issuance to $1.293bn to achieve the strongest first quarter in the sector's history and set it on track for a bumper year.

Swiss Re's new Combine Re cat bond includes the first tranche of investment grade risk to hit the cat bond market since 2007, as industry participants welcome signs of interest from non-specialist investors nearly four years on from the financial crisis.

Leading ILS fund manager Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) has sold around 15 percent of its $1bn cat bond portfolio on the secondary market as it expands in collateralised reinsurance at the start of 2012, fund manager Niklaus Hilti told Trading Risk.