Fidelis continues capital raising with $300m senior note issuance

Fidelis Insurance Holdings Limited, the specialty insurance and reinsurance firm launched by Richard Brindle, has now raised over $1 billion of capital in the last six months, with the latest being a $300 million senior note debt offering that qualifies as Tier 3 capital.

Fidelis had already tapped institutional investors for a $300 million fresh capital raise back in February, to help it expand its business, in an equity growth round that featured the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority alongside existing shareholders.

It then added another $500 million of equity in a recently announced capital raise, as the company sought to take advantage of rising insurance and reinsurance pricing and the ensuing hard market.

In addition, just earlier this week, Fidelis had closed its first ever catastrophe bond transaction, adding a $125 million source of third-party reinsurance capital for retrocessional protection, but that also effectively acts as another capital lever for the company.

Now, Fidelis has just announced the addition of $300 million of Senior Notes with a 10-year maturity to 2030 and paying investors a fixed-rate coupon of 4.875% semi-annually.

Fidelis said that the newly issued Notes have received Tier 3 capital treatment under the Bermuda Monetary Authority’s (BMA) Group Supervision Rules, ensuring they boost the company’s capital supplies in the most effective and efficient manner.

Including the $500 million equity offering announced recently and the previous $300 million raised in February, this new senior notes offering takes the aggregate capital committed to be raised by Fidelis in the last six months to an impressive $1.1 billion.

The recent Herbie Re catastrophe bond is additional of course and now Fidelis’ total capital stands at more than $2 billion.

Fidelis now stands extremely well-positioned for the rest of this year and into the key January 2021 renewal season, when it will be interesting to see how the company wields its new capital resources and where across the insurance and reinsurance spectrum it finds the best opportunities to deploy it.