Sector developments and company hires

ILS issuance remains resilient
US$2.8bn of property catastrophe bond limit was placed in 2Q20, bringing the total issued year-to-date to US$6.5bn, according to Aon Securities’ latest ILS Update report. In comparison, 2019 saw a total of US$5.4bn in property cat bond limit placed for the entire year. The total amount of property cat bonds outstanding is marginally down on 2019 at US$28.4bn.

Issuance so far in 2020 comprises 27 property and casualty transactions completed by 24 sponsors with an average deal size of US$241m, versus 23 transactions completed by 21 sponsors in 2019. “We believe that the busy pipeline will continue over the next two quarters, given the expected maturities of approximately US$2bn,” Aon notes. “This quarter’s steady flow of new issuances - despite a brief interruption, due to the volatility from Covid-19 - was a great reminder of the resilience of this market. A total of 13 transactions were issued and received healthy support from investors, as 14 of the 18 classes upsized from their guidance.”

Although most transactions priced at their mid- to wide-ends of guidance, a slight widening of issuance spreads did not prevent repeat sponsors from returning to the market. Indeed, repeat sponsors accounted for all of the Q2 transactions but one, as Fidelis came to market with its first transaction, Herbie Re 2020-1.

“As some issuance spreads widened, we saw some investors increase their ticket sizes and others re-enter the space. We still see a preference for cleanly structured deals from high-quality sponsors and investors still seem to favour per occurrence over aggregate triggers, as a result of the most recent loss events,” Aon concludes.

North America
Ag Resource Management has named Rasool Alizadeh as cfo and president of capital markets, focused on the strategic funding and liquidity needs of the firm. Alizadeh joins the firm from Ygrene Energy Fund, where he served as head of capital markets and treasury, focused on PACE financing. He was also previously in the structured finance group at SMBC Nikko Securities America, responsible for the term ABS initiative, and has worked at S&P and RBC.

Z Capital Group has appointed Shahid Khoja as a director and member of Z Capital Credit Partners' investment team, responsible for research and analysis on existing and prospective performing and distressed investments. Prior to joining ZCG, Khoja spent seven years at Garrison Investment Group, where he most recently served as a director and senior credit analyst on the corporate credit investment team. At Garrison, he was responsible for investing in credit opportunities across a range of sectors, including liquid and illiquid primary and secondary performing and stressed/distressed opportunities for the firm's CLOs, credit opportunities fund and private credit funds. Previously, Khoja served as an associate at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the corporate debt products group.