Munich Re targets doubling new Queen Street cat bond to $200m

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re is the latest to target an upsized issuance for its new catastrophe bond, with the reinsurer now seeking $200 million in US named storm retrocession from the Queen Street 2023 Re dac transaction.

Artemis reported in April that Munich Re was back in the catastrophe bond market to sponsor its first issuance since 2016.

Munich Re has been sponsoring catastrophe bonds for over two decades and this becomes the 22nd issuance sponsored by the reinsurance that Artemis has tracked in the extensive cat bond Deal Directory.

This new Queen Street 2023 Re catastrophe bond will provide Munich Re with a capital markets backed source of US named storm retro reinsurance protection, covering it for three wind seasons, on an industry-loss trigger basis.

The targeted issuance size was at first $100 million, but as we said when we first covered the deal, there was every chance investor appetites helped that to increase.

We’re now told by sources that the targeted issuance size has been doubled to $200 million of protection for Munich Re.

The Queen Street 2023 Re cat bond notes come with an initial base expected loss of 1.72% and were first offered to cat bond investors with price guidance in a range from 8% to 8.75%.

We’re now told that the price guidance has been fixed at the low-end of that initially marketed range, to pay investors a spread of 8%.

With pricing scheduled for later this week, we should know whether Munich Re secures this upsized slice of capital markets backed retrocession in the coming days. We will update you.

You can read all about this new Queen Street 2023 Re dac catastrophe bond that is being sponsored by Munich Re, and view details of more than 900 other cat bond issuances, in the extensive Artemis Deal Directory.