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Insurers are bracing themselves for large losses from the Atlantic hurricane season as record-breaking Hurricane Beryl fuels fears that warming oceans will lead to more destructive storms.

Beryl, which is expected to hit Jamaica on Wednesday, became the first Atlantic hurricane this early in the year to develop into a category five storm, the most severe.

Its magnitude and arrival so early in the region’s hurricane season, which starts in June, peaks in August and September and runs until November, has already hit shares of some insurers and reinsurers.

“It’s being felt that we are overdue for a bad season,” Stephen Catlin, executive chair at insurer Convex and a veteran of the insurance market, told the Financial Times. “Having an early hurricane of this magnitude suggests that might be the case.”

A variety of factors contribute to the intensity of hurricanes, but climate scientists have highlighted the effects of warming oceans and rising sea levels. The head of the UN’s climate arm said climate change was “pushing disasters to record-breaking new levels of destruction”.

Meteorologists at AccuWeather said the storm could bring “significant flooding, coastal inundation, and wind damage” to Jamaica, after it caused widespread damage in Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines, and left several people dead. 

The insurance industry was already expecting a busier hurricane season after a quieter 2023. In May, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that there was an 85 per cent higher chance of an above-average Atlantic hurricane season, citing several factors including warmer oceans. 

Steve Bowen, chief science officer at reinsurance broker Gallagher Re, said it was a “remarkable, concerning, and ominous start” to the Atlantic hurricane season and should be a “massive wake-up call” on the outlook for losses.

Bowen said we were seeing the results of ocean waters that were “as warm in June as they typically should be in September”, which for storms provide “proverbial rocket fuel”.

While any financial losses from Beryl’s impact on Jamaica are expected to be manageable, industry executives said the storm’s future path remained unclear. It has since been downgraded to a category 4 storm.

“It could continue west into Mexico, or curve into the Gulf and then on to the US,” noted analysts at Twelve Capital. Hurricane Harvey in 2017, one of the costliest US storms, struck the Caribbean before heading into the Gulf of Mexico and making landfall at Texas. 

It is too early for reliable estimates of insurance claims, but attention is focused on the Caribbean public-backed risk pools and catastrophe bonds, a form of reinsurance where risks are shared with investors.

Last month, the World Bank renewed its $150mn catastrophe bond covering Jamaica against big named storms, which if triggered would mean some losses for investors.

How the Atlantic hurricane season unfolds will be critical to the path of prices in the global property reinsurance market, which property insurers use to lay off their risks. Prices have surged in recent years.

Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer for insurance at rating agency Moody’s, said there was now “every indication this is an intense hurricane season likely to break more records”.
 

The race for president has shifted in Donald Trump’s direction following the first 2024 presidential debate.  Trump now has a 3-point edge over President Biden across the battleground states collectively, and a 2-point edge nationally.

A big factor here is motivation, not just persuasion: Democrats are not as likely as Republicans to say they will “definitely” vote now. 

Perhaps befitting a race with two well-known candidates and a heavily partisan electorate, over 90% of both Mr. Biden’s and Trump’s supporters say they would never even consider the other candidate, as was the case before the debate, which helps explain why the race has been fairly stable for months. Recall that Mr. Biden had gained a bit back in June, after Trump was convicted of felonies in New York, but that didn’t dramatically alter the race either. 

That said, the preference contest today does imply an Electoral College advantage for Trump. 

Meanwhile, half of Mr. Biden’s 2020 voters don’t think he should be running this year — and when they don’t think so, they are less likely to say they’ll turn out in 2024, and also more likely to pick someone else, either Trump or a third-party candidate.

Trump, for his part, finds most Republicans feeling bolstered after the debate, saying it made them more likely to vote. And independents remain tightly contested, with Trump narrowly edging up with them now.

Nationwide, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they will definitely turn out in 2024. And Republicans currently have a similarly sized turnout advantage across the battleground states, undergirding Trump’s edge with likely voters there.

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West are included in a national ballot test, Trump’s national edge over Mr. Biden expands to four points. Kennedy draws roughly equally from both candidates, but Mr. Biden cedes a little more to Stein and West, bringing down his overall percentage. 

For many voters, both candidates’ ages are a factor, not just Mr. Biden’s. When people see an equivalence there, Mr. Biden benefits: he leads Trump among those who say both.

The trouble for Mr. Biden is that he trails badly among those for whom only his age is a factor. 

Immediately following the debate, CBS News’ polling showed increasing numbers of voters believing Mr. Biden did not have the cognitive health for the job and that he should not be running. A large seven in 10 still say he should not be running. (It’s three points fewer now than immediately after the debate, perhaps because the Biden campaign pushed back on the idea, but remains the dominant view among voters, and of a sizable four-in-10 share of Democrats.)

Mr. Biden did not gain any ground on Trump on a number of personal qualities: Trump leads Mr. Biden on being seen as competent, tough, and focused. The president continues to be seen as more compassionate.

CBS News considers the battlegrounds as the states most likely to decide the election in the Electoral College: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a representative sample of 2,826 registered voters nationwide interviewed between June 28-July 2, 2024. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as past vote. The margin of error for registered voters is ±2.3 points. Battlegrounds are  AZ GA MI NC NV PA WI. 

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Hawksmoor has been put up for sale in a deal that could value the restaurant chain at about £100mn, according to two people familiar with the matter, as it seeks to grow its international footprint.

Investment bank Stephens, which has been hired to run a sales process, has started speaking to potential buyers, the people said. Graphite Capital has owned 51 per cent of Hawksmoor since 2013.

Hawksmoor chief executive and co-founder Will Beckett and another co-founder Huw Gott, who own a minority stake, will retain their shareholding to continue to lead the company, one of the people added.

Graphite Capital said it did not comment on “market rumour” and Stephens declined to comment.

Hawksmoor did not comment on whether it was up for sale but Beckett said in a statement: “We’ve got a great relationship with Graphite, and together we are getting to know the US investment community in more depth. As that continues, an opportunity may emerge that we wish to explore together.”

Meanwhile, Rare Restaurants, the owner of rival steakhouse Gaucho, is also exploring a sale of the business having appointed Clearwater M&A advisers, two people familiar with the matter said. One person said Rare was yet to start the process, as it was not under financial pressure. Rare Restaurants and Clearwater declined to comment.

London-based Hawksmoor’s sales process comes as the chain, which operates 13 locations, including 10 in the UK, continues expanding abroad having opened in Chicago last week.

It follows Hawksmoor’s debut US site in New York in 2021 and the launch of another venue in Dublin last year.

The company, which opened its first outlet in 2006 in east London as a place to buy better-quality steak, said last week that sales were expected to top £100mn this year with “consistent like-for-like growth”.

One person close to the company said underlying profits for the 12 months to the end of June were above £10mn, and that it aimed to expand further in the US.

In 2021, Hawksmoor shelved plans for a flotation amid uncertainty in the hospitality industry caused by Covid lockdowns, shortages of labour and supply chain disruption. The chain had been working with Berenberg private bank on the plans.

Despite surging inflation and the cost of living crisis, the UK hospitality industry has witnessed several large deals. Last year, Apollo acquired Wagamama-owner The Restaurant Group for £506mn, while Japanese group Zensho acquired Yo! Sushi owner Snowfox Group for £490mn.

Earlier this year, London-based Equistone Partners sold its stake in catering company CH&CO to the world’s largest catering group Compass in a £475mn deal.

The exploration of a sale for Hawksmoor comes as private equity groups face pressure to sell some of their record $3tn in unsold assets in order to return cash to their backers.

Global takeovers in the first half of the year climbed 22 per cent by value thanks to a rebound in big deals, but the total number of mergers and acquisitions fell to a four-year low because of a slowdown in smaller transactions.