October 2009/1

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is also yielding a bountiful harvest of legacy transactions, not least with the sale of two prominent run-off entities.

Guy Carpenter has agreed to buy London-based reinsurance broker Rattner Mackenzie Ltd only weeks after the HCC-owned firm saw its key political risks/trade credit team resign.

Are recent transactions part of a wider trend, or are the PartnerRe-Paris Re and Validus-IPC Re tie-ups in the summer a couple of exceptions that prove the rule?

Deutsche Bank is developing an equity-based insurance-linked instrument that would provide (re)insurers with an alternative to cat bonds and sidecar vehicles, The Insurance Insider understands.

Shelbourne CEO steps down; LMA and Xchanging agree to simplify premium settlement; Matanle 'FSA approved'...

Hartford hires new CEO; restocks after Arch raid; Glaser's wait doubles; MMC up 33 percent in 3 months; Contingent capital comeback...

Our monthly column keeping a check on recent US and EU legislative and regulatory developments, in association with Sidley Austin LLP.

Despite the uncertainty thrown up by the Scottish Lion ruling, administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers is pushing ahead with the proposed solvent scheme of arrangement for Minster Insurance Company.

Forty years ago the Apollo 11 mission put man on the moon, so it was highly appropriate that Nick Jones' start-up Lloyd's Syndicate - branded Project Apollo - should be allocated the syndicate number 1969.

At £161.5mn, the amount of syndicate capacity traded in the annual Lloyd's auctions last month was up modestly on 2008's £134mn, even if it reflects less than 1 percent of the market's total capacity (2009 aggregate capacity is widely thought to be about £17bn).

The run-off industry will again look to Scotland later this month to see whether the confusion created by last month's shock Scottish Lion decision becomes clearer after a case management conference, currently scheduled for the 12 October.

The two Bermudian entities linked most frequently when mergers are mentioned are Harborpoint and Montpelier Re...