Eaton Vance, part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, has added to two of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) allocations it makes within its mutual fund range, with an upsized commitment to the Swiss Re Core Nat Cat Fund and a fresh investment into Munich Re’s sidecar vehicle Eden Re II made for 2025.
The upsizing of the investment into the Swiss Re managed ILS fund has taken the total ILS asset allocation across three of the Eaton Vance mutual portfolio strategies to almost $256 million this year.
Which has increased from just over $206 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Eaton Vance allocates to ILS and reinsurance strategies within at least three strategies of its mutual investment fund range.
These funds have holdings in the Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Investment Management Ltd. (SRILIM) managed Core Nat Cat Fund strategy, reinsurer Munich Re’s sidecar vehicle Eden Re II, re/insurer Everest’s sidecar and segregated account structure Mt. Logan Re, and reinsurer PartnerRe’s strategy, the PartnerRe ILS Fund SAC Ltd.
These ILS and reinsurance investment allocations are made from the Eaton Vance Global Opportunities, Global Macro and Global Macro Absolute Return Advantage fund strategies.
It’s important to note, that Eaton Vance may have other allocations to these or other ILS funds and structures, within investment strategies that we have not seen data for, so its overall allocation to the sector could be higher.
At October 31st 2024, the allocation across all the ILS structures for the three Eaton Vance funds stood at $206.6 million. But that had increased to almost $256 million by April 30th 2025.
Most of that growth has come from an upsized allocation made to the Swiss Re Core Nat Cat Fund in that time, with holdings in that ILS fund across the three Eaton Vance strategies rising from $26 million to just over $85 million, over the same period.
It’s clear that Eaton Vance increased its commitment to the Core Nat Cat Fund at some time over the six month period, with the Swiss Re Insurance-Linked Investment Management becoming the largest ILS holding within these three of its funds.
Also increased slightly is the Eaton Vance allocation, from these three funds, to Munich Re’s collateralized reinsurance sidecar vehicle Eden Re II, with this rising from $62.65 million at the end of October 2024, to $66.2 million at April 30th 2025.
Notably, a fresh allocation was made for the 2025 underwriting year, with just over $56 million committed to the Eden Re II 2025 issuances, while older year’s allocations have declined in size.
Over that period, the allocations to Everest’s Mt.Logan Re and to PartnerRe’s ILS Fund SAC have shrunk slightly, with at April 30th 2025 the Mt. Logan Re investments across the three Eaton Vance funds amounting to $47.54 million, while the PartnerRe ILS Fund allocation stood at $56.9 million at that time. The data suggests these could be mid-year allocations, so it will be interesting to see if they change or are added to in future.
Eaton Vance is another good example of a large multi-asset class investment manager integrating reinsurance-linked returns within some of its strategies and funds, largely through aligned fund and sidecar-style strategies where it partners with major global re/insurers, it appears.
It reflects the growing awareness of the attractive and relatively uncorrelated returns that ILS and reinsurance investments can offer to multi-strat funds, how that can be additive to multi-class portfolios, as well as a growing comfort with the ILS asset class in the global investment community.
The majority of the ILS holdings sit within the Eaton Vance Global Opportunities mutual fund, with just over $170 million of the total located in its portfolio.
As said, given its size and large AUM, it’s entirely possible Eaton Vance has more allocations to the ILS and reinsurance sector in strategies we do not have access to data for.
