Ambassador mutual catastrophe bond fund expands further to $263m

The Ambassador US mutual catastrophe bond fund strategy operated by advisor Embassy Asset Management has continued to expand in the busy cat bond market, driving its net assets to a new high of $263 million by July.

The Ambassador cat bond fund was launched in the third-quarter of 2021 by investment advisor Embassy, which has a focus on non-correlated strategies and delivering income to its clients.

It’s the most recent launch of a US mutual investment fund structure with a dedicated catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment focus.

Having begun allocating capital to catastrophe bonds in the quarter to April 30th of 2023, while also renewing its first private ILW arrangement, the Ambassador Fund benefited from more inflows to its catastrophe bond focused strategy around the end of last year, which continued into 2024 as well.

When we last covered the cat bond fund back in April, the Ambassador Fund had around $191 million in net assets under management.

As well as catastrophe bonds, the fund had also begun to invest in a number of private ILS arrangements, which were industry loss warranties (ILW) under a structure named Consulate Re.

That has continued, as too have the inflows of investor capital, as a result of which the Ambassador Fund had reached over $226 million in net assets by the end of April, its last reported quarter, but has since then expanded further to $263 million of net assets as of this July.

As well as new catastrophe bond investments made, one more ILW investment has also been entered into, a Consulate Re 2024-5 transaction.

As of April 30th, the Ambassador Fund portfolio held $204.4 million in catastrophe bonds and a further $22.8 million in preferred notes from the Consulate Re series of private deals.

In terms of performance, this mutual catastrophe bond fund strategy delivered its investors a 10.1% return for full-year 2023 (remember it only began allocating to cat bonds part way through Q1 2023) and a 4.71% return so far in 2024.

The rolling twelve-month return for the Ambassador cat bond fund currently stands at 11.46%, according to Artemis’ data sources.