Merna Re, the largest catastrophe bond of all time, is set to mature in June, and State Farm is already putting together its replacement, the creatively named Merna Re II. The successor, planned for issuance in April, is said to be for $400 million in risk capital, though investor demand could push it as high as $700 million. This still pales in comparison to the $1.2 billion that the original brought in the door.

If State Farm is able to stimulate demand for Merna Re II, which would protect the company from non-California earthquake risk in the U.S., it will be third cat bond to come to market in 2010, which is expected to be a strong year for this form of risk transfer. The cat bond market fell silent after the near-collapse of American International Group (AIG) in September 2008 but was still the third busiest in terms of capital issued in the history of the cat bond market. Heading into 2009, prospects for the cat bond space seemed uncertain, but a robust fourth quarter eventually resulted in a year-over-year increase, driven mostly by repeat issuers.

Art Capital Group and Annie Leibovitz have moved on from each other. Last week, the photographer found something of an angel in private equity firm Colony Capital LLC.

Leibovitz owed $24 million to the art investment bank last September, when she restructured her debt for terms that were not disclosed. The private equity firm, which worked with Michael Jackson in the past, settled the debt to Art Capital Group on March 8, 2010, and announced a "new partnership" with Leibovitz. None of the terms are being disclosed ... as usual.

Thursday morning, it was announced that British petroleum firm BP (BP) will pay $7 billion for a group of Brazilian assets held by American firm Devon Energy (DVN). In exchange, Devon will receive half of BP's Kirby assets in Alberta, Canada for $500 million.

BP believes the its entry into Brazil will "add a major position in another attractive deep-water basin." BP will dish out $7 billion for interests in 10 exploration blocks in Brazil, 240 leases in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico deep water, and a nearly 6% stake in an Azerbaijan development. As a result of the deal, BP will have complete control of the Kaskida field in the Gulf of Mexico.

Given that Blackboard (BBBB) is the dominant player in online-education technologies, the company needs to find ways to leverage its platform into new categories. And one of the most promising is wireless.

After all, most college students spend lots of time on their phones. And, as these devices get more sophisticated, there are more opportunities to add helpful features.

Despite the magnitude of the recent earthquake in Chile – in both physical and financial terms – it's unlikely to trigger a catastrophe bond payout. Catastrophe modeling firms AIR Worldwide and EQECAT offer a range of estimated insured losses of $2 billion to $8 billion, though the dust is still settling. According to insurance securitization blog Artemis.bm, "A similar quake in the right area of the U.S. or Japan would most certainly have triggered a cat bond."

Though there has been cat bond activity in Latin America, none have been issued in the region to cover earthquake risk. Low rates of insurance penetration are likely to keep what will already be a costly situation for insurers and reinsurers from being even worse -- i.e., because not much coverage has been written in Chile.

It looks like American International Group (AIG) has found another $15.5 billion. The insurance company is selling its American Life Insurance Co. division to MetLife (MET) for $6.8 billion in cash and $8.7 billion in equities. Approximately $9 billion from this sale will be used to repay funds provided by the Federal Reserve, totaling $182.3 billion. This follows the announcement of Prudential's $35.5 billion designs on AIG's Asian operations.

Robert Haines, analyst at CreditSights, tells Bloomberg News, "This is a sizeable transaction." He continues, "It demonstrates they're making some tangible progress on their plan to divest assets."

While the past couple years have been tough for private equity firms, the problems at Cerberus Capital Management have been quite painful. After all, the firm got crushed on investments in companies like GMAC and Chrysler.

But this does not mean everything has been bad. For example, Cerberus has filed for a $100 million IPO of Tower Automotive.

Rumor has it that Tiger Woods has started to brush up on his game a bit and some of golf's greats believe that he will be playing in the Masters. If, and when, he returns, Tiger will be a little lighter in the sponsorship arena, what with AT&T (T), Accenture (ACN), and PepsiCo's (PEP) Gatorade all having ended their sponsorship deals with Tiger.

Fear not though, Tiger is making enough money that he can actually turn down sponsors. Reportedly, an Irish bookie -- Paddy Power (awesome name) -- has made a $75 million offer to sponsor Tiger over the next five years.