November 2006/5

Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter is leading a consortium of brokers, including Aon Corp and Jardine Lloyd Thompson, which will place Brazil’s largest property contract in the January renewals.

The Lloyd’s Market Association’s (LMA) has announced that its chief executive Simon Sperryn, will leave the association at Christmas 2006.

Industry legend Hank Greenberg and his Starr companies have sold over 27 million shares in his former company, American International Group (AIG), since May.

Insurers Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group (R&SA) and Zurich Financial Services (ZFS) both unveiled strategies for expanding into Eastern Europe this week.

Lloyd’s insurer Kiln plc increased the forecasts on the bulk of its syndicates when it updated the 2004-5 years in a trading statement on 24 November.

AIM-listed Heritage Underwriting Agency plc announced on 24 November that it has raised £14.6mn in a share placement.

Quoted Lloyd’s insurer Chaucer Holdings plc posted an upbeat trading statement on 23 November with improvements on 2004 and 2005 forecasts and an optimistic outlook for next year.

Omega Underwriting Holdings plc’s move to Bermuda was endorsed by Numis Securities analyst Nick Johnson last week (22 November).

Catastrophe modelling agency Risk Management Services (RMS) has reiterated its medium-term five-year view on the probability of Atlantic storm losses as above average from next year, despite 2006’s placid storm season.

XL Capital, which announced the first of the post-Katrina sidecars Cyrus Re in November last year, has launched a new Cayman Islands special purpose reinsurance vehicle, Stoneheath Re.

Perhaps demonstrating the capital market’s restraint over supporting new reinsurance ventures, a trio of start-ups in the sector that were mooted to list on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) look increasingly unlikely to proc

The Lloyd’s Corporation has brought in David Harris - a senior representative of the G6 group of London market insurers – on secondment, as the three-hundred-year-old Society agrees a number of changes to improve the service it provides.