Insurer James River Group Files for IPO

James River Group Holdings Ltd, a Bermuda-based insurance holding company, filed for an initial public offering of common shares that would raise up to $288 million.

Hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co LP’s affiliates own 72.6 percent of the insurer’s Class A common shares, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. owns 26.3 percent.

James River had first gone public in August 2005, less than three weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf coast.

D. E. Shaw Group bought the company for $575 million in cash in June 2007.

James River owns a group of casualty insurance and reinsurance companies operating primarily in the United States.

Richmond, Virginia-based business insurer James River Insurance is its largest subsidiary as measured by gross written premiums.

James River Group’s revenue rose about 2.7 percent to $206.5 million in the six months ended June 30 from a year earlier. The company’s net income fell to $18.7 million from $28.1 million.

Keefe Bruyette & Woods, UBS Investment Bank, FBR Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets are the lead underwriters for the offering, James River said in a regulatory filing.

The company said it plans to list its common stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol “JRVR.”

The filing did not reveal how many shares were expected to be sold in the offering or their expected price.

James River said its selling shareholders will receive all of the proceeds from this offering.

The amount of money a company says its IPO plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Reporting by Tanya Agrawal and Amrutha Gayathri in Bangalore; Editing by Kirti Pandey and Maju Samuel