Beleaguered Bermuda-based insurer Trenwick yesterday said it had got approval to sell off several of its units.

In a press statement issued last night, the company said the Financial Services Authority of the United Kingdom had signed off on its sale of all of the capital stock in Trenwick International, Trenwick Management Services and Specialist Risk Underwriters to LCL Acquisitions Ltd., an associated company of the Litigation Control Group. Trenwick International is currently in run-off, or not writing any new business while it continues to honour any outstanding claims.

No price for the sale was disclosed, but the development does not stop the wind-up and bankruptcy proceeds that were launched against the company earlier in the year.

Trenwick is currently being wound up in Bermuda's courts and is also faced with Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the US, UK and Barbados. The wind-up of the company followed its defaulting two times this year on debt agreements it had with senior note holders. However,Trenwick said yesterday that its Lloyd's operations were not subject to the wind-up proceedings in Bermuda and their operations continued.

There has been recent speculation that Trenwick would sell off its Lloyd's operations to management. A press release issued then cited the arrangement as an “exclusive negotiation agreement” with the management team of those operations - called Trenwick Managing Agents - pending “due diligence” by investor Englefield Capital. But it was not known last night if the sale capital stock to LCL Acquisition was in any way connected to earlier reports of a management buy-out of Trenwick Managing Agents.

Trenwick Managing Agents is understood to underwrite specialty insurance as well as treaty and facultative reinsurance on a worldwide basis.

It continues to be the one Trenwick unit still actively writing business. Trenwick effectively ceased all other business last year after deals were reached to hand over in-force business to competitors.

The company's demise comes on the heels of significant financial woes. In the last year, its stock plummeted to trading below a dollar after it posted a third quarter, 2002 net loss of $140 million only to follow that with $198.1 million loss in the fourth quarter and a $386.1 million loss for the 2002 financial year.

Its poor stock performance saw it taken off the New York Stock Exchange and relegated to the Over the Counter (OTC) stock market where its shares were yesterday trading at a value of three cents. Trenwick's 52-week high stood at $6 and its 52-week low was as low as it could go at one cent.Last year the company was also delisted from the Bermuda Stock Exchange, the S&P 500 and its poor financial performance prompted rating agencies to either downgrade Trenwick's financial strength ratings or withdraw them entirely.