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IMF looks to ruin PE-insurer party
29 December 2023The International Monetary Fund has raised further warning flags on private equity-owned insurance businesses. At the heart of the concerns are the illiquid assets these insurers use which may lead to financial catastrophe, if the IMF is to be believed.
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US debt ceiling drama strikes again
18 May 2023Grubby politics are again featuring as the spoiler for financial market equilibrium. The US debt ceiling standoff seems to be an annual affair—but this one looks a lot more serious than those in the past. Sarfraz Thind reports
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Arena Capital the smooth operator
19 September 2022High yield is usually associated with high risk. But Arena Capital is showing it need not be so—it has produced stellar returns for insurers in recent times and in doing so smoothed out some of the volatility associated with the asset class. Sarfraz Thind reports
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Fossilised investments
05 October 2021The US insurers' portfolios remain heavily skewed to oil, gas and coal assets. Even as the clamour for net-zero grows, where is the insurance business going with fossil fuels? Sarfraz Thind reports
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US insurers boost Federal Home Loan borrowing for higher-yielding investments
21 May 2021FHLBs provide cheap loans for insurers for geared asset purchases
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IAR 2020 Americas: NAIC puts liquidity stress tests on ice, due to the live one underway
23 September 2020Code name: COVID-19
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US insurers have $46bn commitments to PE
07 August 2020Underwriters have rotated from hedge funds for better returns
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US insurers hold $602bn of under-fire retail mortgage loans
07 May 2020Retail borrowers feeling pressure of COVID-19 lockdown as rise in defaults predicted
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Low-risk securities lending being ignored by US insurers
06 November 2019US insurers use repo and securities lending for less than 1% of investments, NAIC study finds
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Ibor transition still patchy as 2021 deadline looms
03 October 2019Structured finance market among slowest to shift to new benchmarks, says Fitch