December 2008/4

Troubled insurer AIG intends to merge two units of its major Asian life insurance entity American International Assurance Co Ltd (AIA) and list the restructured company in Hong Kong, according to reports.

Bermuda-domiciled While Mountains' reinsurance arm, White Mountains Re, has announced the retirement of CFO Chuck Chokel and a subsequent management reshuffle.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has warned of soaring European corporate defaults in 2009 as the financial services sector heads for a sombre year.

UK quoted Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has announced the launch of a new treaty reinsurance operation in Bermuda through JLT Re, its trading division.

Former CEO of General Re Ronald Ferguson was sentenced to a two year custodial sentence for his role in the $500mn finite reinsurance fraud involving the Berkshire Hathaway owned reinsurer and American International Group (AIG).

Troubled Australian insurer Insurance Australia Group (IAG) completed a partial withdrawal from the UK personal lines market with the sale of its Equity broking operations to UK High Street broker Swinton...

Libero Ventures, the capital markets convergence firm formed in late 2007, has acquired the shareholding previously owned by Lehman Brothers from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrators of the failed investment bank's European operations.

Insured catastrophe losses this year are estimated to have hit $50bn, making 2008 the second costliest on record, according to research from Swiss Re.

European (re)insurance trade body CEA has outlined its opposition to proposals to changes in US tax law in a letter to the US Senate Finance Committee and the Committee on Ways and Means for the US House of Representatives.

French-headquartered reinsurer SCOR has been granted a Takaful reinsurance licence and a conventional reinsurance licence for its SCOR Global Life branch on the Malaysian offshore domicile of Labuan.

Brazilian authorities have granted three more licenses to foreign reinsurers looking to tap into the country's recently opened reinsurance market.

Shares in troubled Bermudian (re)insurer XL Capital Ltd rallied almost 30 percent last week on the back of rumours that Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway was considering a bid for the company.