With its many large institutional investors and pension funds, Switzerland is an important market for Scor Investment Partners (Scor IP). Although the subsidiary of the French insurer has only had a team in Zurich for around one and a half years, it has been serving Swiss clients since it was founded around 15 years ago.

Scor IP offers special products in the area of fixed income, including insurance-linked securities (ILS), infrastructure debt, real estate debt, corporate credit and high-yield bonds.

Attractive Returns with Controlled Risk

“We want to offer our institutional clients attractive strategies that enable them to achieve good returns with a controlled level of risk,” says CEO Louis Bourrousse in an interview with finews.ch. The target group is large institutional investors and pension funds. “We can offer products that can be used to achieve specific diversification goals.” Another advantage is the low correlation of ILS with other asset classes.

“Switzerland is the second most important market for us after France,” emphasizes Bourrousse, who has been with Scor IP since 2013 and took over as CEO in November 2023. France accounts for around 40 percent of business, with Switzerland close behind at 35 percent. The remainder is split between the Belgian, Luxembourg and UK markets.

Of the fixed-income specialist's total of around 100 employees, three are based in Zurich and work primarily in the German-speaking Swiss market. “We want to continue to grow here,” he says.

With more than 20 billion euros in assets under management (AuM), Scor IP is an important player in this niche market. Of that, approximately EUR 7.5 billion comes from third-party investors, such as insurance companies, pension funds, banks and asset managers, Bourrousse continues.

ILS as a growth segment

The ILS business is a growth area with a volume at Scor IP of more than 4 billion dollars. With two of the largest funds, it is one of the top 10 players in the ILS market worldwide. Hedging insurance gaps, for example through CAT bonds, is becoming more important and is gaining in significance. “This market has also reached a depth and liquidity that makes it attractive for larger institutional investors.”

“Over the past ten years, the entire ILS market has grown from around 60 billion to more than 100 billion dollars today. In 2023 alone, growth was around 10 percent,” emphasizes the manager.

Bourrousse is also seeing increasing interest in infrastructure debt. This includes, for example, renewable energy projects such as wind or solar energy plants, green mobility, fiber optic projects or data centers.