
Underweight US High-Yield: Renaud-Chatelain
Laureline Renaud-Chatelain, Fixed Income Senior Strategist at Pictet Wealth Management, discusses her expectations for inflation, divergence between the US and European bond markets, and investing in TIPS and gold as safe havens. She speaks to Bloomberg's Guy Johnson, Anna Edward and Kriti Gupta on 'The Opening Trade.' (Source: Bloomberg)
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US, China to Resume Trade Talks With Focus on Rare Earth Exports
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Hedge Funds Face California Rebuke Over Role in Wildfire Claims
(Bloomberg) -- Hedge funds are facing pushback in California as their bets tied to insurance claims stemming from the Los Angeles wildfires are attacked as unethical. Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn The transactions in focus are tied to so-called subrogation claims, which hedge funds, private equity firms and other alternative investment managers have been buying from insurers over the past few months. Subrogation kicks in if a third party such as a utility is suspected of being responsible for losses covered by insurers. Hedge funds buying these claims from insurers are now under attack from the California Earthquake Authority, which is the administrator of the California Wildfire Fund. 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That includes over $125 million in claims traded in just one day, Ryder wrote. A spokesperson for Oppenheimer declined to comment. Cherokee didn't name the hedge funds for which it brokered deals. In an email to the California Earthquake Authority, Ryder said that as catastrophic weather events become 'more prevalent,' insurers are increasingly resorting to 'recovery subrogation in the secondary market to fortify the balance sheet.' There's a growing consensus that insurers can't cover the rising costs of weather-related catastrophes alone, especially as climate change fuels more extreme events. For that reason, the industry is looking for ways to shift part of its financial risk over to capital markets, with alternative asset managers often the only investor class willing to step in. Efforts to prevent investors from profiting from the subrogation claims they've bought represent 'a politically motivated attempt to not pay legitimate obligations,' Max at Cherokee said. They're 'trying to beat up deep-pocketed hedge funds, despite the ethical and legal implications,' he said. Recovery of subrogation claims is costly and can take years to play out, which is why insurers have started selling them in exchange for an upfront cash payment. The hedge funds buying them are betting that the recovery sum at the end of the process will exceed the amount they paid the insurer to buy the claim. The market for investing in subrogation claims is characterized by over-the-counter deals with little to no transparency. Subrogation deals had a seminal moment more than half a decade ago, when faulty power lines and equipment failures at California utility PG&E Corp. were blamed for wildfires in the state. Back then, hedge fund Baupost Group LLC purchased claims against PG&E worth $6.8 billion. Bloomberg has previously reported that Baupost may have generated an estimated $1 billion of profits. The California Wildfire Fund, which is administered by the state's Earthquake Authority and overseen by the California Catastrophe Response Council, was set up in 2019 to help reimburse claims arising from wildfires caused by utility companies. If hedge funds prevail in their subrogation claims, some of the money could end up coming from the California Wildfire Fund. The fund, which sits on about $13 billion in liquid assets, is partly capitalized by three utilities — San Diego Gas & Electric Co., Edison International's Southern California Edison and PG&E. While the cause of the January fires remains under investigation, it's already clear that the Eaton Fire started inside the service territory of Edison and therefore leaves the fund potentially exposed, the authority said. With current estimates for insured losses as high as $45 billion, the January Southern California wildfires are expected to be the costliest in US history, according to the California Earthquake Authority. 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