Catalina To Purchase Swiss Reinsurer
Catalina Holdings (Bermuda) Ltd. today (Jan. 11) announced that it has signed a definitive share purchase agreement to acquire Glacier Re.
Headquartered in Cumberland House on Victoria Street, Catalina Holdings is a Bermuda company backed by significant blue chip investors, and specialises in the acquisition and management of non-life insurance and reinsurance companies and portfolios in run-off.
Catalina has offices and operations in Bermuda, New York, London and, following completion of the Glacier acquisition, Switzerland.
Glacier Re, a Swiss-based reinsurance company, entered runoff last year following the sale of its wholly-owned subsidiary Glacier Insurance to Torus Insurance.
The sale is contingent upon the approval of Swiss regulatory authority FINMA, and if this proves forthcoming the deal should go through in the first quarter of the year.
Glacier Re was established seven years ago, and before it entered runoff wrote a diversified book of predominantly short tail reinsurance.
Its assets total $1.2bn (as of 30 September 2010), with gross technical reserves of $466m and net assets of $374m.
Catalina chairman and chief executive Chris Fagan said: “Glacier Re fits our acquisition profile well and adds significantly to our existing business. We continue to be very acquisitive and are seeing an increased flow of run-off acquisition opportunities.”
Other recent acquisitions concluded by Catalina include Quanta Capital Holdings in 2008, Alea UK in 2009 and Western General Insurance in 2010. When the Glacier Re acquisition is concluded, Catalina will have total assets of $2 billion.
