Montpelier Re Announces Secondary Share Offering
Bermuda-based Montpelier Re Holdings Ltd. announced that “affiliates of White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd. and funds managed by Prospector Partners, LLC plan to offer approximately 4,785,540 common shares of Montpelier pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement.”
The bulletin noted that “Notwithstanding the offering, White Mountains’ beneficial ownership of shares of Montpelier will only decline to 13,472,357.5, as White Mountains has also indicated it intends to purchase currently exercisable warrants to acquire 2,390,785.8 shares of Montpelier from an existing warrantholder on March 15, 2004.”
It also added that the company “will not be selling any common shares in connection with the offering and will not receive any proceeds from the offering.”
The announcement explained that “White Mountains has indicated that this offering is being made in connection with an internal restructuring of its business and that, together with additional steps White Mountains may take, a change in the treatment of its Montpelier investment under US generally accepted accounting principles may result. White Mountains has further indicated that, after giving effect to both the sale of the shares in this offering and the acquisition of the warrants, its fully converted ownership percentage of Montpelier common shares will be approximately 18.4 percent.”