Stone Ridge Asset Management

The segment’s lustre has been dulled by losses and capital trapping.

The fund’s prospectus showed 2017 was its only negative year since 2014.

The cat bond-focussed High Yield fund made a smaller annual gain of 2.2% but drew in more investors.

The more cat bond focussed vehicle added just under $300mn in the half-year.

Hank Greenberg’s Starr Insurance and Liberty Mutual have invested in the service provider, which will enable bitcoin-powered P&C solutions.

The news follows the reinsurer’s announcement that the executive would step down from his role at the end of April.

The ILS manager offered to repurchase 20% of Interval fund shares, but this failed to meet investor demand to exit.

Net assets across the manager’s interval and high-yield reinsurance funds totalled $3.82bn at 31 October, down 31% from a year earlier.

A more diverse investor base is supplanting continued cutbacks from some ILS players, although Stone Ridge's participations are holding more stable than in prior years.

Nephila’s fall in AuM contributed to the trend of specialist firms shrinking, as reinsurer-backed assets were up modestly.

The loss-hit fund’s NAV has increased more than five-fold to $40 a share since the stock merge.

Investors collectively tried to redeem more than a third of the $3bn fund.