"We see continued opportunity going forward in the life insurance and reinsurance space, with growing demand from life insurers driven by the complexity of financing solutions required"
Securis Investment Partners has launched the Securis Life Fund IV, the fourth of its long-standing life insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds, with close to $300 million of capital committed.
The strategy offers investors an opportunity to diversify sources of return within the ILS market, where the majority of products are focused on catastrophe risk and other perils. Securis believes that the attractive risk-adjusted returns of the strategy, and strong expected growth of opportunities in the life market, will create interesting allocation opportunities over time.
As with previous iterations, the investment strategy of the latest life fund will focus on transactions which are predominantly exposed to life insurance risks. These can vary widely in format, from fairly standard reinsurance arrangements to highly structured, multi-jurisdictional transactions. This new fund will be managed by the Securis Life team which counts 8 investment professionals.
Andrea Cavalleri, CIO of life at Securis, said: “We see continued opportunity going forward in the life insurance and reinsurance space, with growing demand from life insurers driven by the complexity of financing solutions required and the challenges faced by mainstream commercial lenders in addressing the needs of the industry in this highly specialised area. ILS is generally uncorrelated relative to other more traditional asset classes and adds attractive diversification benefits to an investment portfolio. We believe the investors in Securis Life funds recognise that we are one of the more experienced, specialist managers in the ILS space, and this new fund is an example of how we focus on offering new solutions to gain exposure to ILS.”
Vegard Nilsen, CEO of Securis, commented: "Life insurance ILS, in our opinion, is ideally poised for growth in a higher interest rate environment, as projected life ILS return profiles remain stable on a spread basis. Interest rates are not the main driver of performance. For our counterparties, however, other sources of funds are now more expensive. Securis is well-placed to provide flexible, competitive capital to our counterparties at attractive yields for our investors. Now that we have raised the $300m we were seeking, the fifth vintage of the Securis life strategy is expected to launch during the first half of 2023.”
