Secondary trading

Total yield was 10.93% as of 30 May, including 4.34% of risk-free rate.

Integrity Re 2024-D and Lightning Re 2023-1A are two bonds that were marked down, although no trading has occurred.

The ETF format provides for publication of a daily NAV.

The firm predicts 2024 will be a record year for primary issuance.

The moves mark a major step in realising “trillion dollar” casualty ILS potential, according to Ledger Investing CEO Samir Shah.

Secondary market activity and hedging would be likely if a Beryl-sized storm tracked toward the US.

DeCaro is one of the cohort of pioneering ILS managers.

Spreads could continue widening throughout the rest of the year.

The former Ledger director was joined by fellow ex-Ledger employees to “hit the ground running”.

ILS returns in 2023 sparked a flurry of enquiries from hedge funds.

Drop-in capital has now largely left the cat bond market.

A diverse investor base is among market characteristics seen as important for growth.

All funds tracked returned a positive performance.

With more ILS managers chasing the popular bond space, how will new operators differentiate themselves?

The firm joins other challenger brokers in tackling the stronghold of the cat-bond broking space.

The transaction covered a portfolio of $250mn in casualty risk premiums.

Some sources have called for more transparency on secondary trades, though others note the buy-and-hold nature of the market limits trading appetite.

The casualty ILS fund has been on a hiring spree since its $75mn Series B fundraise in June last year.

Former retro broker Erik Manning is leading the initiative having joined BMS Re in January.

Lane Financial said that the cat bond market is suggesting that the early markdowns were an overreaction.

Transparency and alignment of interests are the keys to expanding casualty ILS.

FloodSmart Re bonds recovered by a few points in October after initial steep write-downs following Ian.

The casualty ILS platform said it now expects to do more secondary transactions.

The broker-dealer said it would continue focusing on secondary trading activities.

There are few areas of overlap in the Willis Re-Gallagher Re combination but some details to be ironed out on the new executive team.

ILS managers said strong appetite for more liquid investments made bondholders want to hang on to their securities in Q1.

Trading data showed the market delivered on liquidity in the midst of the pandemic panic.

The carrier’s annual catastrophe losses ticked up to $2.9bn in October.

The increase was largely driven by successful capital raising, large numbers of maturities and fewer new issuances to replace them.

The Samir Shah-led firm is focusing on risk transfers from MGAs.

Returns on the Aon ILS Index outpaced other major financial indices in the second quarter.

The World Bank’s pandemic bond is expected to partially pay out as deaths surpass trigger points.

The fresh markdowns follow a recovery in the bond's price as the Ebola threat abated.

The platform will be able to facilitate a wide range of structured investment opportunities, which could include standardised documentation that managing agents can adapt.

Aon’s plan to launch an auction platform in time for 1 January 2020 suggests a struggle is underway in the reinsurance space for the position of auction technology market leader.

Investors are taking a broader look when evaluating transactions with more emphasis on qualitative attributes of sponsors, according to the firm.

The framework introduced by the BMA last July allows companies to test new technologies and products on customers in a controlled environment.

Brokers could act as market makers for ILS transactions listed on the exchange.

Cat bond prices in the secondary market have begun recovering following a pre-Christmas sell-off, as investors sought to release capital ahead of the renewal, brokers said.

The insurer is expected to make significant recoveries from its aggregate cat bonds for the second year running.

The Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index was up by 0.45 percent in August but this figure was below the 13-year average of 0.68 percent.

ILS premiums steadied after a 9.5 percent drop in the first quarter, according to Lane Financial's benchmark.

The executive has joined the Bermudian ILS manager as a senior analyst.

London-based start-up Akinova is developing an electronic trading platform for (re)insurance risk and is planning to start with listing a version of an industry loss warranty (ILWs) called an “AELO” – an Akinova Event Linked Option.

Cat bond broker-dealers said the market had plenty of impetus left after a record-breaking first half of 2017.

Secondary trading in the ILS market rose six percent year-on-year during a bumper second quarter, according to Aon Securities' Q2 2017 ILS update.

Prices on aggregate storm-exposed cat bonds are largely holding up after an active start to the storm season, as sources reported increased demand for multi-peril and earthquake diversifiers.

High volumes of new deals kick-started further activity in the secondary cat bond market and gave yields a small boost in the first quarter, but 2017 ILS returns remain well below last year's levels

Cat bond spreads rose slightly throughout February but yields remained below levels that prevailed on the ILS market a year ago, according to data from RMS.

Cat bond prices in the secondary market edged upwards early in February, as the market waited for the New Year's issuance to kick-start

A record "wall of maturities" due in the cat bond market over the first half of 2017 may result in volumes shrinking temporarily, but favourable conditions in the sector could produce record volumes of new deals, according to Swiss Re Capital Markets.

Further detail has emerged on RenaissanceRe's new $140mn Fibonacci Re vehicle, which has been described as a hybrid cat bond/sidecar facility

Markdowns to the Gator Re cat bonds in late November caused average cat bond spreads to spike heading into the end of the year, according to data from RMS.

Returns from investing in so-called "deadcat" bonds - transactions that are nearing maturity and face little or no further catastrophe risk - have softened this year, in a reflection of generally tighter ILS market conditions.

The volume of livecat trading of industry loss warranties (ILWs) prompted by Hurricane Matthew may have reached up to $150mn-$200mn, according to sources contacted by Trading Risk.

Cat bond prices in secondary trading had recovered to pre-Hurricane Matthew levels by the end of last week (14 October), rising by 1.57 percent to 95.53 as the storm's impact proved to be less severe than anticipated.

Gator Re prices have regained further ground as the bond approaches maturity without covered losses notably rising.

Cat bond yields continued to fall in late summer, as half of the hurricane season elapsed without a US storm threat.

ILS fund returns averaged 0.40 percent in July as managers escaped losses from storms and flooding during the month, according to the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index

Risk-adjusted cat bond spreads recovered some ground in June as the ILS market earned incremental premium from higher-risk deals, according to RMS data.

Gator Re regained some value on the secondary market during trading in late June and early July, according to Finra Trace data

The secondary cat bond market cleared the first Gator Re trade in two months this week, as the bond's price tumbled in response to aggregate claims rising near its trigger

There continued to be more buyers than sellers on the secondary cat bond market in June, which kept prices relatively firm

A downturn in industry loss warranty (ILW) pricing has limited cat bond lite issuance activity in 2016, with a couple of recent deals breaking the dearth of activity

Fronting boosts Allianz; Lloyd's index in progress; Securis SPS drives Novae top-line growth; Kiskadee premiums up 37% in Q1; Hannover Re expands April cat portfolio; Athene set to IPO; TigerRisk opens ILS trading desk; ART signs 10-year wind risk swap

Risk-adjusted cat bond spreads have dipped below 2015 yields for the first time this year, according to RMS data.

Cat bond prices continued to edge upwards in May, amid intense buyer demand when there was very little for sale.

TigerRisk's capital markets arm has received regulatory approval to open a secondary trading desk covering a range of ILS products, which will be headed by Patrick Gonnelli

Allied World Q1 premium drop; Ontario Teachers'sells ANV; Alternative capital hits $72bn: Aon Benfield; RMS on Ecuador quake; Record rainfall floods Texas...

Strong bidding interest on the secondary cat bond market helped to counteract the influence of seasonality in early April

Lane Financial estimated the ILS market's turnover rate at about 20 percent or $4bn a year, after looking at 21 months of secondary trading data filed by the industry with US regulators

Xchanging said it hoped secondary "trades" of reinsurance contracts would become an integral facility of its X-gRm platform after TigerRisk announced it had completed the first such transaction today.

Cat bond trading slowed in early March amid uncertainty over the outlook for upcoming issuance

The UK Treasury has provided details on the proposed regulatory framework that it hopes will attract ILS business to London, envisaging a six-to-eight-week timeframe for the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to approve new structures.

Independent London broker Alston Gayler (AG) has added a PCS Turkey licence to facilitate industry loss warranty (ILW) trading of the risk

The Swiss Re Cat Bond Price Return index stabilised in early February after posting incremental softening throughout late 2015.

ILS investors traded a total of at least $20mn MultiCat Mexico 2012 class C notes at distressed levels in the three months from late October.

Gross catastrophe bond yields ended 2015 up almost 10 percent from December 2014, according to RMS data.

Catastrophe bonds were yielding about 16 percent more year-on-year by the end of November, according to RMS data.

There were fewer buyers of cat bonds near maturity this year than in 2014, making it more difficult for sellers looking to trade out of positions ahead of the January renewal season, sources told Trading Risk.

The head of global ILS structuring and origination at Swiss Re Capital Markets, Markus Schmutz, has left after 16 years with the firm, Trading Risk has learned.

Cat bond prices trailed off by 0.62 percent in the final two weeks of October, as the market faced a potential loss from Mexico's Hurricane Patricia.

Swiss Re has brought its capital markets staff into a new broader structured solutions division, appointing Philipp Rüede to head up the team's property and casualty section in a newly created role.

The Swiss Re Cat Bond Price Return Index has almost reached the values recorded at the start of 2015 after posting a 1.7 percent upswing since mid-July.

TigerRisk has been marketing a derivative product that triggers off a Lloyd's index, which could offer ILS funds exposure to a range of specialty business written within the London market, Trading Risk understands.

ILS spreads began their seasonal tightening relatively late into the hurricane season this year, with widening persisting into May and June.

Billy Welch has left Aon Securities, where he was an associate director in the Chicago office, Trading Risk understands.

Swiss Re Capital Markets said that the cat bond market was poised to see "mild" rate increases for the first time in a long time.

The average ILS expected return recovered to 3.66 percent by June 2015, from a low of 2.36 percent in September 2014, according to secondary market data compiled by Lane Financial.

The Swiss Re Global Cat Bond Price Return Index has experienced its largest first-half fall since H1 2011, when the market was rocked by Tohoku earthquake losses.

Typhoon bonds Akibare II and Aozora are on watch following predictions that Category 4 Typhoon Nangka could make landfall in southern Japan late next week, Trading Risk understands

Demand for high-yielding catastrophe bonds has remained strong on the secondary market, pushing up prices for such securities above par.

AIG has upsized its parametric cat bond Compass Re II (2015-1) by 50 percent to $300mn while pricing on the private deal narrowed to the mid-to-upper range of initial guidance, Trading Risk understands.

US state-specific wind bonds have been changing hands over the past month in reaction to a flurry of new issuance from Floridian insurers and state wind pools, according to US regulator Trace's Finra database

American International Group (AIG) has launched a $200mn private cat bond on the new electronic broking platform Rewireconnect, Trading Risk understands.

Insurance companies interested in issuing private placement catastrophe bonds offered under Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act may benefit from streamlining the structure of a bond, but they must be careful not to strip away important structural elements for capital markets risk transfer.

The first quarter of 2015 saw a slight hardening of rates on the ILS market, in contrast to the same period last year.

The secondary ILS market cleared a new record-sized trade of the $1.5bn Everglades 2014-1 cat bond in March, sources told Trading Risk.

Several cat bonds have been trading on the secondary market over the past week, led by AIG's Tradewynd Re (2014-1) class 1B notes, according to the Trace system of US regulator Finra.

The Alamo Re issuance from the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) has been one of the most actively traded bonds on the secondary market in recent weeks, making up over a third of trades recorded on US regulator Finra's Trace system since mid-February.

Catlin's new Galileo Re bond is already trading above par on the secondary market just weeks after its issuance.

The value of annual cat bond trading on the secondary market has more than doubled in the past four years, from $1.7bn in 2010 to $4.2bn last year, fund manager Elementum Advisors estimated.

The secondary cat bond market has cleared more than $3mn of trades over the previous week, according to data collected by US regulator Finra's Trace reporting system.

Kane's segregated accounts company has issued a $50.2mn private cat bond, according to a listings announcement on the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX).

Kane lite platform goes electronic; Micrix index gains 12% in 2014; World Bank pandemic facility; Longevity platforms

High-yielding cat bonds have made up two-thirds of the trades on the secondary market in the first six weeks of 2015, according to information recorded by Finra's Trace system.

Kane SAC has enhanced its private cat bond platform with an electronic trading system to facilitate the secondary trading of cat bonds issued on the platform.

American Strategic's cat bond Gator Re has recovered value in the New Year after the bond's annual aggregate loss tally reset.

Cat bond traders said that activity on the secondary market was subdued in January, as there was less cash overhang than had been expected amid a large number of maturities.

Gator Re has recovered value in the New Year after the bond's annual aggregate loss tally reset, Trading Risk understands.

The Gator Re cat bond has traded as low as 79 cents on the dollar after sponsor American Strategic Insurance (ASI) reported a deterioration to its loss reserves for 2014.

The Swiss Re Cat Bond Global Price Return Index took its biggest fall of 2014 in November.

Prices on American Strategic's Gator Re cat bond dropped by roughly 10 percent in the week following the sponsor's updated loss report, but sources said a wide variation on indicative pricing remains.

The volumes of US-linked industry loss warranties (ILWs) traded in the first half of 2014 came to about $800mn as suppliers broadened the terms of their cover, according to estimates from Aon's Global Re Specialty unit

Cat bond prices remained 1.16 percent below the peak recorded for 2014 by the end of August, after beginning their seasonal climb in mid-July

The regulator for securities firms operating in the US has begun to publish data on catastrophe bonds traded by its members in an attempt to make the Rule 144A bond market more transparent

Plenum Investments said its cat bond fund will become the first ILS fund to be traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange, thereby offering investors daily liquidity.

Secondary cat bond pricing, as measured by the Swiss Re Global Cat Bond Performance Price Return Index, took a small 0.2 percent dip in June after dropping 1 percent during April and May

A "seismic shift" following the $1.5bn Everglades Re issuance led the Swiss Re Global Cat Bond Performance Price Return index down 0.7 percent during May, continuing several months of seasonal price tightening.

The $1.5bn Everglades Re issuance has helped soak up investor demand for Florida hurricane risk and put pressure on secondary market pricing for such bonds, Trading Risk understands.

The largest price rises on the secondary cat bond market have been seen at both the very low and very high risk ends of the ILS spectrum over the past month, traders told Trading Risk.

US broker-dealer regulator the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) is planning to disseminate pricing and volume information on catastrophe bond trades completed by its members from the end of June.

The flurry of primary cat bond issuance over the past month has sparked secondary trading interest around some of the new bonds, as some ILS traders questioned whether the market is reaching a floor.

An influx of new capital into the ILS market at the start of the year caused cat bond spreads to tighten and bond prices to climb yet higher on the secondary market, according to the Aon Benfield ILS trading team.

Swiss Re Capital Markets said that cat bond premiums are likely to remain in a "holding pattern" of tight spreads for the first quarter as investors contend with a high volume of maturing bonds and expectations that new issuance activity will be rather slow over the first two months of the year.

ILS traders have predicted that secondary trading volumes will reach $3bn-$3.5bn in 2013.

The secondary cat bond market has seen relatively active trading levels over the past month, with ILS investors looking to trade short-dated bonds that come off risk this month, Trading Risk understands.

Listed ILS fund DCG Iris reported an active month for cat bond trading in June as it moved out of several positions in order to lock in mark-to-market profits, according to its latest monthly report

The robust pipeline of new cat bonds issued in 2013 led to high levels of trading on the secondary market during July, with some light trading continuing in the typically quiet month of August, sources said

Berkshire Hathaway has returned to the life settlements market for the first time since 2006 as it completed the $60mn purchase of a portfolio with a face value of $300mn.

Outstanding cat bond volumes reached $17.1bn by the end of June 2013, just nudging out the previous record high of $17bn set in 2007, according to Swiss Re's latest update on the ILS market.

A group of ILS funds tracked by the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index posted an average return of 0.42 percent in May, with all the funds represented posting positive figures for the month

Most cat bonds with exposure to aggregate tornado risk showed positive pricing movement between the start of May and early June after a spate of severe US storm strikes last month, according to pricing data obtained by Trading Risk.

The sustained seller's market in secondary cat bonds experienced in the first quarter has subsided after new issuance flooded into the market, but investor appetite remains strong, ILS traders have indicated.

ILS funds tracked by the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index posted an average return of 0.83 percent in April

Former Rochdale Securities ILS trader Craig Bonder has moved with his team from Maxim to AK Capital to set up the firm's first ILS trading desk.

A busy period for primary issuance and buoyant demand for cat bonds has fuelled a very active secondary market over the past month, but pricing has finally started to ease back from sustained highs earlier in the year.

Tokio Millennium Re recouped $20.5mn from industry loss warranties (ILWs) traded as livecat contracts during Superstorm Sandy, the company disclosed in its 2012 annual report

Strong demand in the secondary cat bond market is resulting in "pre-sell" bids being placed on new notes above par value before the deals have even closed, according to sources

The strength of investor interest in the (re)insurance sector is expected to keep spreads tight as ILS prices remained strong on the secondary market throughout March

Buying demand on the secondary ILS market remains strong but there have been few trading opportunities in recent weeks as cash-flush investors await new issuance opportunities

Strong demand for bonds on the secondary market has outpaced supply after lower-than-expected new issuance in the fourth quarter and first weeks of January

Former Aon Benfield Securities executives Andy Beecroft and Paul Rayner have officially joined the new M&A team at GC Securities, in a move first revealed by sister publication The Insurance Insider in August last year.

Guy Carpenter has hired former Goldman Sachs trader Sung Yim to support its launch of a secondary trading desk serving the ILS market, Trading Risk can reveal.

Prices on US hurricane cat bonds have regained value on the secondary cat bond market following the post-Sandy price falls last month.

Guy Carpenter has hired former Goldman Sachs trader Sung Yim to support its launch of a secondary trading desk serving the ILS market, Trading Risk can reveal.

The Swiss Re Cat Bond Price Return Index has gained 1.3 percent over the past week, after PCS' first loss estimate for Hurricane Sandy forecast just $11bn of total insured losses

Investors have been willing to trade bonds exposed to uncertainty about Sandy losses, but some were subject to hefty markdowns, leading the Swiss Re Cat Bond Price Return Index down 2.6 percent the week after the storm struck.

Trading on the secondary cat bond market has been limited during the onset of hurricane Sandy as investors took a wait and see approach to trading opportunities.

(Re)insurers need the scale of the capital markets to absorb some of the challenges of the longevity market, as the life expectancy age for adults continues to grow

Nephila Capital says it may consider opening up wider access to its secondary trading data after it began releasing information on trading prices to investors this summer.  

Broker dealer Lane Financial estimated that average premiums in the ILS and industry loss warranty (ILW) market dropped 10 percent during the second quarter

Secondary cat bond pricing has begun levelling out after an uptick that began in early June, when high demand for bonds pushed up prices, as 2012 vintage bonds continue to price above par

Several new investors are looking to take on positions in the ILS market as secondary market pricing offered attractive discounts by the end of Q1 2012, Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA) says in its quarterly update on the market.

Secondary cat bond pricing fell 2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 as an active new issuance pipeline and selling pressure pushed the market down, according to Aon Benfield Securities.

Secondary trading volumes have been dampened by the busy new issuance pipeline as investors focus mostly on building up their portfolios with new deals