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Leading Swiss cat bond investment manager Clariden Leu has re-opened its flagship cat bond fund to new investments following strong ILS issuance in the second half of the year.

ILS stalwart USAA is revisiting the capital markets with its second Residential Re transaction this year, opening the season for Q4 US wind issuance and testing investor appetite for the peak perils.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs has completed a $200mn note issue to purchase mortality cover on a block of US life insurance policies.

Broker Tullett Prebon and German exchange Deutsche Borse hope to have real quotes for over-the-counter (OTC) longevity swaps by early next year after collaborating on indicative pricing sheets for the instruments.

New cat bond sponsor American Family Mutual Insurance finalised pricing on its $100mn Mariah Re transaction yesterday (2 November), with a spread 1 percent below the lower end of initial price guidance, Trading Risk understands.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has posted a stable outlook on State Farm and RenRe's $100mn joint venture sidecar-style transaction Top Layer Re, on the back of a recent action on State Farm.

French insurer Axa's latest cat bond, Calypso Capital, has closed at almost double initial targets, offering EUR275mn of European wind exposure to ILS investors.

The Life & Longevity Markets Association (LLMA) has launched a set of standardised pricing documents as part of its mission to create a liquid longevity risk market.

Hedge fund Fortress Investment Group is in exclusive talks to buy a $6.2bn life settlements portfolio from Belgian bank KBC, according to reports.

Hedge fund Blue Mountains is understood to be involved in the launch of a $500mn Bermudian reinsurance and retro start-up, Flex Re.

Two hedge fund-backed property and casualty (P&C) start-ups are close to defying the soft market by looking to launch later this year, according to (re)insurance entrepreneur Don Kramer.

Cat bond investors will be exposed to an unhealthy concentration of risk if the conservative policy of using Treasury Money Market (TMM) funds as collateral becomes standard, says Niklaus Hilti, Credit Suisse Asset Management's insurance-linked strategies head.

Scor has become the latest (re)insurer to set up its own insurance-linked investment fund, setting aside $100mn of seed capital for a dedicated fund that will be known as Atropos.

Swiss-based Plenum Investments has started investing through its new $5mn Cat Bond Fund.

Captives manager Kane Group is looking to expand into ILS and industry loss warranties (ILWs) in Qatar after receiving a warrant to set up in the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), according to reports from Captive Review.

The capital markets and reinsurers should collaborate to provide protection against extreme systemic risks beyond the catastrophe markets, Munich Re said at the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous.

The first of four European windstorm bonds anticipated in Q4 2010 - Groupama's Green Valley - priced below guidance, sparking more debate on investors' pricing thresholds for ILS.

In our regular ILW quarterly update, Willis Re executive director Henry Kingham discusses the speculative nature of ILW trading...

Paradex Japan launched; Weather hedges pay out; WRMA warned on volcanic fallout

A mid-October meeting will determine the future business plan for trading platform IFEX, which could launch European windstorm derivative products for this year's season.

Industry loss warranty (ILW) buyers have been seeking to protect 2010 profits from potentially costly Q4 catastrophes by purchasing short-dated contracts to year-end, Trading Risk can reveal.

The big three modelling firms, AIR, RMS and Eqecat, fiercely defend their independence from the commercial impact of their risk models, with commentators lauding modellers' "considerable integrity" in devising their own methodologies.

As the state of New York mulls plans to funnel compulsory catastrophe insurance premiums into its own wind pool, existing quasi-governmental plans are buying more reinsurance protection from the capital markets.

Hurricane model update; Hannover sponsors earthquake model; Perils updates Xynthia loss; Funds dig Down Under