RenaissanceRe launches Medici UCITS catastrophe bond fund with $340m

RenaissanceRe, the Bermuda-based reinsurance company and third-party ILS capital manager, has now officially launched its first UCITS compliant property catastrophe bond fund strategy, the RenaissanceRe Medici UCITS Fund, with $340 million of capital allocated, confirming our reporting from three months ago.

Back on December 4th 2024, Artemis reported that RenaissanceRe (RenRe) was expected to become the newest manager of reinsurance assets to offer a UCITS insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund strategy.

As we explained in that article at the time, a fund structure had been registered in Ireland under its Medici brand, leading us to believe this was set to be a catastrophe bond fund, with the name of the UCITS ICAV umbrella structure being RenaissanceRe Medici ICAV and the cat bond fund itself, a single sub-fund to the ICAV structure, the RenaissanceRe Medici UCITS Fund.

Now RenRe has confirmed the first UCITS cat bond fund strategy from the company, saying that it officially launched to investors this week, with $340 million in capital already committed to the new fund.

The RenaissanceRe Medici UCITS Fund has been purpose-built to offer European and other global investors an access point to RenaissanceRe’s existing catastrophe bond investment strategy, via a dedicated European-regulated UCITS structure, the company explained today.

The RenaissanceRe Capital Partners team will act as the investment manager for the new fund, which the company said is intended to complement its current cat bond strategy.

The new Medici UCITS fund will share “substantially similar investment guidelines and risk appetites” with the existing Medici cat bond strategy, RenRe explained.

The existing Medici strategy counted almost $2 billion of assets under management, including RenRe’s stake, as of January 1st 2025.

The $340 million of capital held in the new Medici UCITS fund consists of existing partner capital, new partner capital and a $140 million co-investment from RenaissanceRe, the company further stated, also saying that it is expected to generate additional fee income for the firm.

Ross Curtis, EVP, Chief Portfolio Officer of RenaissanceRe, commented on the launch, “The launch of Medici UCITS reflects the continuing global growth and diversification of RenaissanceRe, furthering our mission to match desirable risk with owned and partner capital. We are proud to bring a new fund to our third-party investors while providing needed protection to our clients.”

Christopher Parry, SVP, Global Head of Capital Partners, added, “At RenaissanceRe, we pride ourselves on our 25-year track record of managing third-party capital and the trusted relationships we have built with our investors over this time. Medici UCITS, the latest in our full suite of offerings, provides our European partners with expanded access to the attractive catastrophe bond market in a structure that meets their needs. We look forward to bringing the same risk expertise and proprietary tools of our Medici portfolio management team to investors in this fund.”

RenRe is not the only investment manager expected to enter the UCITS cat bond fund space this year.

As we also reported recently, Man Group, the global independent alternative and active investment management firm, has made an application to establish a UCITS catastrophe bond fund under its Man AHL brand, we had learned.

The UCITS fund structure can provide a differentiated source of capital, being accessible by smaller institutional and high-net worth investors, so can be a valuable extension of an existing cat bond fund management offering.

However, over-time, the UCITS funds have become some of the largest in the catastrophe bond fund marketplace, showing just how important this structure has become to specialist investment managers within insurance-linked securities (ILS).

As a group, the current cohort of UCITS catastrophe bond funds counted over $13.8 billion in assets between them at the end of 2024.

According to the Plenum CAT Bond UCITS Fund Indices, the cohort of current UCITS cat bond funds delivered an average return of 13.62% for full-year 2024.

View information on many dedicated ILS fund managers, as well as reinsurers offering ILS style investment opportunities, such as RenaissanceRe, in our Insurance-Linked Securities Investment Managers & Funds Directory.