June 2007/3

UK broker COBRA Holdings has announced its intention to seek admission to the AIM stock exchange with a planned £10mn float.

Converium Holdings has announced that its chief risk officer, Markus Krall, will leave at the end of June citing personal reasons.

Catlin Underwriting Agencies CEO, Paul Jardine has been elected as the new chairman of the Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) to replace ACE Europe’s CEO and chairman Andrew Kendrick.

UK regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has banned David King, the president of the unauthorised insurer CIC, from working in regulated companies for life.

Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group plc (R&SA) has entered into an agreement to acquire 50 percent of a company giving it access the fast growing Eastern European and Russian insurance markets.

Alliant Insurance Services Inc became the latest US insurance broker to succumb to overtures from private equity investors when it confirmed last week that it had agreed to a takeover from The Blackstone Group.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said that it will step up its efforts to overhaul reinsurance regulation in the US before addressing the collateral charges faced by alien reinsurers.

Lloyd's announced last week that it is to return to the debt markets with a benchmark issue of between £300-500mn in Tier 1 perpetual subordinated debt.

US (re)insurer Liberty Mutual has continued its series of hurricane linked cat bonds with the launch of the $150mn Mystic Re II.

Two subsidiaries of Paris Re, the former reinsurance arm of AXA Re, have been assigned an initial rating of A- by Standard & Poor's (S&P).

Airline rates witnessed double-digit falls for the eight consecutive month, with lead hull and liability premiums down an average of 18 percent during May, according to a report by Aon.

Bermudian (re)insurer Validus Holdings Ltd has increased the size of its pending initial public offering (IPO) to $350mn following its $382.2mn acquisition of Lloyd's based Talbot Underwriting Holdings.