ILS

Aon Benfield has been appointed sole broker for the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) as the state-backed reinsurer looks to take advantage of soft property cat pricing to transfer up to $2.2bn of risk to the private market, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Demand for reinsurance is expected to increase at the key mid-year renewals as insurers look to use risk transfer to support growth opportunities, according to Aon Benfield.

The first two Florida cat bonds of 2015 have priced in the mid to upper levels of forecasts, sister publication Trading Risk has reported

Allstate is reconsidering its options for the seven-year Sanders Re cat bond after failing to gain sufficient investor interest within its initial targets, sister publication Trading Risk revealed last week

Former Goldman Sachs banker Michael Millette is expected to return to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market with a new investment venture by mid-year, Trading Risk understands

Fidelis, the start-up that Lancashire founder Richard Brindle is working on alongside Goldman Sachs, has raised upwards of $1bn already and is targeting a 1 July go-live date with an equity capital base of $2bn, The Insurance Insider understands

Montpelier Re - cat reinsurer, third-party fund manager and Lloyd's minnow - is not the acquisition that Endurance CEO John Charman wanted

Transatlantic Re has dropped plans to establish a $1bn hedge fund reinsurer as the long wait for another vehicle to follow Watford Re off the production line continues, The Insurance Insider can reveal

The state-backed Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) is again facing some local political backlash after it submitted a proposal to buy more than $2bn of reinsurance limit for the 2015 hurricane season, according to local media reports.

AQR Capital Management is winding down its $445mn Bermuda reinsurance platform, after deciding that it will be "increasingly difficult" to scale up the business and sustain attractive risk-adjusted returns for investors.

The pace of cat bond issuance has picked up as the end of the first quarter comes into sight, with a number of sponsors bringing out new deals in the past week.

Tokio Marine expanded its new Kizuna Re II cat bond from an initial target of 25bn yen ($207mn) to 35bn yen ($290mn), as the ultra low-risk deal was oversubscribed by insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors, sister publication Trading Risk reported.