LONDON (Bloomberg) ? Benfield Group Ltd. employees, including some directors, sold shares in the UK reinsurance broker worth about ?24 million ($42.4 million).

The sale comes as a six-month lock-up on the stock following Benfield's initial public offering expired, a spokesman for the company said. Employees sold about 9.3 million shares, equivalent to a 3.9 percent stake in the company, at 260 pence apiece. Merrill Lynch & Co. managed the sale.

Benfield is registered in Bermuda where it has a small office while its main operations are based in London.

The broker, which redomiciled in Bermuda last June, helps find coverage for risks such as kidnappings and hurricanes, earlier this month said the decline in the US dollar will weigh on earnings. Benfield and existing investors raised ?181 million pounds selling stock in the June IPO.

Rod Fox, chief executive of Benfield's US division; Andrew MacDonald; and David Spiller, chief executive of the company's international division; sold shares in the offering, the company said.

Benfield shares closed unchanged at 260 pence in London and have gained about four percent since the IPO.