New Bermuda reinsurer formed

HAMILTON, Bermuda--Bermuda-based White Mountains Insurance Group has joined with Paris-based banking firm NATIXIS to create Pentelia Capital Management, an asset management company with an inaugural fund designed to participate in a broad array of insurance risk securitization markets, according to the founding companies.

The Bermuda-based fund, Pentelia Ltd., which has closed with capital commitments of about $600 million, has created a new Bermuda reinsurer, Pentelia Re. The reinsurer was formed to be able to offer direct reinsurance coverage on a collateralized basis, if desired, according to NAXTIXIS and White Mountains.

Pentelia Ltd. will invest in a diversified portfolio of life and nonlife insurance-linked assets, including adverse mortality bonds, weather derivatives, terrorism insurance, life settlements, catastrophe bonds and property cat reinsurance.

The fund's strategy is to invest in a number of "remote-probability insurance events and to deliver a consistent return with little or no correlation with financial markets," the founding companies say in a statement.