S&P Upbeat on Insurance-Linked Securitization End of Year Prospects
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services London office has published a new report – “Insurance-Linked Securitization Poised To Finish Year Well.” Credit analyst Maren Josefs noted that the “recent lack of activity in the ILS market and disruption in the credit markets has engendered debate over the outlook for issuance throughout the rest of this year.” She noted that, “although there have been no new ILS transactions since the beginning of August, we consider this in part reflects the seasonality of issuance.”
However, Josefs indicated that a more meaningful barometer for ILS is the secondary market where we are told that catastrophe (cat) bond trading has increased and spreads have tightened. This underlines the lack of default correlation these instruments have with more conventional securities.
“We consider that credit market events are unlikely to dampen ILS investor appetite and that total issuance in 2007 will be greater than in 2006,” she concluded.
The article, titled “Insurance-Linked Securitization Poised To Finish Year Well” is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect, the real-time Web-based source for our credit ratings, research, and risk analysis, at: www.ratingsdirect.com. Alternatively, call Client Support Europe on (44) 20-7176-7176.
Source: S&P