St. Paul Sells 6 Million Shares in Platinum
Bermuda-based Platinum Underwriters Holdings, Ltd. announced the sale of 6,000,000 of its common shares by St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of The St. Paul Travelers Companies, Inc.
The announcement noted: “St. Paul Travelers will continue to hold an option to acquire 6,000,000 common shares of Platinum and has agreed that, subject to limited exceptions, it will not dispose of any of its Platinum common shares or related options for a period of 180 days, except with the prior written consent of the underwriter.”
Platinum was originally formed through the spin-off of St. Paul Re and the St. Paul owns approximately 24 percent of the company’s shares. RenaissanceRe owns around 13 percent. The company filed a $750 million shelf-registration at the end of March in which the two companies stated that they had “advised Platinum that they are participating in the registration to preserve flexibility to include some or all of their respective shares in any offering of shares in the future pursuant to the registration statement” (See IJ Website March 24).
Platinum had also previously announced that it “will not sell any common shares in the offering and will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the common shares by the Selling Shareholder.” It also indicated that the company’s “executive officers and directors have agreed that, subject to limited exceptions, they will not dispose of any of their Platinum common shares or related options for a period of 90 days, except with the prior written consent of the underwriter.”
Some analysts had been expecting RenRe to sell a portion of its stake, but the bulletin announcing the St. Paul sale indicated that it “is not selling any of its common shares in the offering and has agreed that, subject to limited exceptions, it will not dispose of any of its Platinum common shares or related options for a period of 180 days, except with the prior written consent of the underwriter.”
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