Catalina

The additional $700mn in equity committed by Apollo is a huge vote of confidence in Catalina and the legacy market.

The extra committed equity provides the run-off acquirer with greater firepower for larger deals.

The agreement for the casualty facultative reinsurance business comes after up-for-sale Maiden struck deals with Enstar and TransRe.

The spike occurred after this publication reported Maiden’s board had retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch to run a formal sales process for the company.

The run-off acquirer spent $5.73mn to increase its stake from 5 percent.

The Bermuda reinsurance vehicle is set to co-invest alongside Catalina in major UK legacy deal with Zurich.

The two parties are understood to be nearing an agreement on the sale of £1.6bn of Zurich’s legacy UK employers’ liability exposures.

With the recent push from Lloyd’s to remediate the market’s ailing profitability, it’s widely expected that the legacy market will see greater reinsurance-to-close (RITC) deal flow in the months to come.

Parri Spector has previously advised Catalina on various US transactions.

The Apollo-backed legacy player is close to a deal to take on past liabilities of $1.1bn third-party book.

Acra Re is expected to be used as a vehicle to co-invest alongside legacy business Catalina.

Legacy deal talks with Maiden have stalled, leaving Catalina as a meaningful investor in a challenged business with a potentially highly volatile share price.