CATLIN GROUP PREPARES FOR LONDON LISTING SAYS PAPER

Bermuda-based Catlin Group, which also manages syndicate 2003 at Lloyd’s, is preparing to float on the London stock exchange in a move that will value the business at £800m, reports the Sunday Telegraph . Such a move would be 33% larger than the flotation earlier this year of Lloyd’s broker Benfield. Catlin expects to write £1.2bn in premiums this year. The group is reported to have elected for a London listing because it feared that a sequence of insurance-related issuances in the US might have sated investors’ appetite for another insurance stock. Catlin raised $482m in November last year, mainly from US-based private equity backers. In August Catlin Underwriting Agencies bid 35p for every £1 of business held by private names in syndicate 1003 so that it could merge it into its larger operation syndicate 2003.