END OF LINE FOR SWISS RE IRELAND

Swiss Reinsurance Ireland Ltd has gone into voluntary liquidation, with an estimated surplus of €95.7m, as part of Swiss Re’s recently announced restructuring of its legal entities. Michael Sargent of Michael Sargent of Co has been appointed liquidator. Swiss Re announced in March that it would be transferring most of its insurance and reinsurance risk to three new Luxembourg-based entities, ahead of new European reinsurance rules. The new structure is scheduled to be in place by the middle of 2009 with the conversions of the first locations beginning January 1 2008. Swiss Re Ireland employed 16 staff in 2005 and repatriated €150m in dividends to its parent in that year. It also declared a pre-tax profit of €27m. Swiss Re said that the reorganisation would “improve the alignment of regulatory and economic capital requirements”.