Last year was a painful one for cryptocurrencies and blockchain. After cyrpto prices hit all time highs a year ago, the market cap for all cryptocurrencies dropped more than $500 billion by the end of 2018, with many altcoins suffering as bad or worse as bitcoin.
There’s no shortage of claims that the death of crypto is at hand. But is it?
Today, as is my custom on the first day of the new year, I am going to take a stab at what the year ahead will bring. I find it useful to think about what we are in for. It helps me invest and advise the companies we are invested in. Like our investing, I will get some of these right, and some wrong. But having a point of view, a foundation, is very helpful when operating in a world that is…
The right way to think about cryptocurrency coins is as lottery tickets that pay off in a dystopian future where they are used in rogue and failed states, or perhaps in countries where citizens have already lost all semblance of privacy. That means that cryptocurrencies are not entirely worthless.
Some blockchain token projects may be allowed to bypass U.S. securities registration requirements by obtaining so-called no-action letters from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an agency official said.
The insurance and reinsurance industry may shoulder as much as $1.1 billion of claims for damage following the tsunami that struck Indonesia after the eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano. The volcano-triggered tsunami is thought to have killed more than 430 people and caused significant damage to coastal areas, damaging hundreds of homes and businesses […]Indonesia tsunami insured loss…
Dutch pension fund manager PGGM has partnered with Bermudian reinsurer and third-party capital manager RenaissanceRe on a new risk-remote rated property catastrophe reinsurance vehicle named Vermeer Reinsurance Ltd. Vermeer Re will initially be capitalised with $600 million of funding from PGGM and the pension fund manager has an option to add another $400 million of […]PGGM & RenRe…
Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd., the retrocessional reinsurance investment specialist, has announced further reserve setting and strengthening related to catastrophe loss events that occurred in 2018 and are expected to hit its listed retro fund portfolio. Recently the ILS and reinsurance linked asset manager that is owned by Markel Corporation announced a strengthening of its […]…
A cyclical downturn in the amount of alternative capacity deployed into reinsurance markets through insurance-linked securities (ILS) would benefit traditional reinsurers like Swiss Re, the Chief Executive Officer of the firm has explained in the press. For Swiss Re CEO Christian Mumenthaler, his interview in the Financial Times that was published this morning contains the […]Cyclical…
In association with our sister publication Reinsurance News, we’ve launched a new survey asking for your opinions on the state of the market as the January 2019 renewal fast approaches. Please spare us five minutes of your time and provide your view. We’re looking for opinions on: reinsurance market demand; where you see pricing moving; […]Participate in our 2019 renewal and…
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) has promoted Bernard Grzinic to the role of Managing Director for Credit, Insurance Linked Securities and Equities within Capital Markets group, which will see him leading the investment teams for each of these areas. The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) is a long-standing investor in insurance-linked securities (ILS) and […]Ontario Teachers’…
Hannover Re has continued its prolific level of private catastrophe bond activity around the reinsurance renewals with the completion and issuance of another two Seaside Re cat bond lites amounting to $40 million in the first week of January. Prior to these two new Seaside Re cat bonds, Hannover Re had already facilitated and issued […]Hannover Re brings $40m more Seaside Re cat bond lites…
For insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors with a longer time horizon, the declining interest from opportunistic investors is a positive development, according to Robert Lindblom, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Entropics Asset Management AB. In a recent newsletter, the CEO of the Swedish catastrophe bond fund manager notes that following the high level of catastrophe […]Reduction…
Resilience Re Ltd., the private catastrophe bond issuance platform owned and operated by insurance and reinsurance broker Willis Towers Watson, has completed its first issuance of the new year, with an issuance of $88 million zero coupon Resilience Re Ltd. (Series 1912A) notes. In 2018, the Willis Towers Watson Securities operated Resilience Re platform issued […]Resilience Re in $88m…
Experienced insurance-linked securities (ILS) investor Dutch pension fund manager PGGM and global reinsurance firm Munich Re have now completed what appears to be the rest of their 2019 Leo Re Ltd. private sidecar arrangement, with another $380 million tranche of notes issued. In December PGGM’s Leo Re Ltd. collateralised reinsurance sidecar issued a $20 million […]Munich Re &…
It’s expected that global reinsurance capacity, including that provided by the capital markets, will be on the rise again as 2019 progresses and the market recovers, given the current spate of capital raises and new launches that are in the works. After the catastrophe losses of 2017 and 2018, which amount to around $200 billion […]Reinsurance & retro capacity may rise again soon…
New funding from Germany through KfW is set to enhance the affordability and utility of parametric sovereign disaster risk transfer products offered through the CCRIF SPC (formerly named the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility) to Caribbean and Central American countries. Germany has delivered the largest single round of funding from one donor under the Central […]New funding to…
German reinsurance giant Hannover Re has assisted with and issued another private catastrophe bond transaction, or cat bond lite, with the issuance of a $10 million California earthquake risk exposed LI Re (Series 2018-1) deal for an unknown cedent and certain ILS investors. Hannover Re has been busy using its Kaith Re transformer vehicle to […]$10m California quake cat bond lite issued by…
Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc. is changing its capital structure, adding a new $125 million credit facility, the proceeds of which will be used to redeem previous financing including private debt that ILS specialists Fermat Capital Management and Hudson Structured had invested in. The U.S. primary property and casualty insurance group said it has arranged a […]Heritage to redeem private…
Insurance-linked securities (ILS) capacity is helping to fill the disaster gap left by the traditional insurance and reinsurance industry, with dynamics set for “substantial ILS market growth” in the future, according to John Seo, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Fermat Capital. The volume of ILS capital now makes up roughly 20% of dedicated reinsurance capital, […]Dynamics set for…