The World Bank has issued $105 million of pandemic-linked catastrophe swap derivatives to help bolster funding for The Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, formed in 2016 by the World Bank largely in response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

GC Securities, a division of MMC Securities L.L.C., served as co-manager of bonds and joint arranger of swaps for the facility, the company said Thursday in a statement.

The facility was created to rapidly deliver funds to member countries of the International Development Association facing a major disease outbreak, according to the statement.

Munich Reinsurance Co. helped develop the insurance component of the fund which will provide a maximum pandemic coverage of $425 million for an initial period of three years. “The PEF shows how close collaboration between the public sector and insurers can help limit the negative effects of catastrophes in developing countries,” Joachim Wenning, chairman of Munich Re’s management board, said in a statement.

Swiss Re Capital Markets is the joint structurer and sole book-runner for the catastrophe bond transaction.

"Swiss Re was co-mandated by the World Bank to develop and design the 'insurance window' of PEF and lead the marketing efforts of the transaction in its role as sole book-runner for the capital market placement.” Christian Mumenthaler, group CEO of Swiss Re Ltd., said in a statement. “The combined derivative/capital markets structure is just one of many pioneering elements of this transaction."

Data from the World Health Organization was used by AIR Worldwide to provide expert risk modeling, according to the GC Securities statement.

“Our capital-agnostic perspective delivers an innovative combination of catastrophe bonds and swaps, giving the World Bank a diverse range of cost-effective risk transfer products supported by both capital markets investors and traditional (re)insurers,” Peter Hearn, president and CEO of Guy Carpenter & Co. L.L.C., said in the GC Securities statement.

“We have taken a momentous step that has the potential to save millions of lives and entire economies from one of the greatest systemic threats we face,” Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, said in the GC Securities statement.