Trading Risk January 2018

PartnerRe has named Greg Haft as deputy CEO for specialty lines. He will work with company CEO Emmanuel Clarke, who has assumed direct responsibility for the segment.

MS Amlin's chief underwriting officer Simon Beale will take over as the company's new CEO following the retirement of Charles Philipps in April

Chaucer has appointed Jerome Faure as an independent non-executive director of Chaucer Syndicates, its managing agency and main operating company

XL Catlin has reshuffled several roles after forming a partnership with private investment firm Gallatin Point Capital LLC in a bid to expand its alternative capital capabilities

Validus has reorganised its senior management team as part of a strategic move to promote closer collaboration between units including specialty insurer Talbot, US insurer Western World and asset management operation AlphaCat

Luca Tres, head of life at Securis, says the life ILS sector needs to steer clear of leveraged asset plays, which could fail if the wider markets collapse

A smooth reloading of ILS capital and a glut of capacity contributed to catastrophe reinsurance rates rising by less than reinsurers had pushed for following last year's losses, brokers said in early post-renewals reports

The momentum for retro rate increases at the January renewals slowed at the end of last year, sources said, as lack of new demand and a smooth reload of lost capital meant increases fell short of expectations

There was a fresh surge of reinsurer sidecar launches during the January renewals, in a signal that further carriers are belatedly recognising the value of managing third-party capital

A group of sidecars tracked by Trading Risk took losses of 13.0 percent on average between July and October as the fallout from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria took its toll

Sequant Re; First Republic; Private equity buy-up; PGGM's Leo expansion

There was a wide spread of returns among cat bond fund managers in 2017, with a small average loss of 0.44 percent recorded for the year

Nephila Capital's equity investment in new managing general agency (MGA) Volante Global will not see its ILS funds taking on any underwriting risk sourced by the start-up, but the catastrophe specialist has not ruled this out in the future

The recent launch of Lumen Re means the top three ILS fund managers now have in-house access to rated paper, highlighting the continuing convergence of the ILS and reinsurance markets

Cat bond volumes reached $11.1bn in 2017, according to Trading Risk records, as new sponsors Validus Re and Covea wrapped up fourth quarter deals in a record year for issuance

I took a three-week holiday in the sun in December - not the sort of thing you want to go bragging about in the reinsurance market when many people are working late nights in the run-up to the 1.1 renewals

ILS broker-dealers are expecting another $10bn issuance year for the cat bond market, as (re)insurance buyers seek to manage post-loss pricing adjustments

The market's leading ILS managers grew their assets under management (AuM) by almost 10 percent in the second half of 2017, highlighting the ease of the post-loss reload

William Hardcastle will be leaving Twelve Capital's London office after joining the firm in 2015 as head of equity strategy, according to sources.

Leadenhall Capital Partners has hired Amee Karlstrom as a funds operations analyst. She has three years' experience in the back office operations at First International Group.