LaSalle Cover Company LLC has made a tender offer to Series A Preferred Shareholders of bankrupt Bermuda-based LaSalle Re Holdings. The offer to buy up to 1,500,000 preferred shares or 50 percent of the outstanding preferred shares at a price of $1 each represents a 300 percent premium over the closing price on the shares on December 22, 2004.

In a Press statement LaSalle Cover Company said acceptance of the offer would provide holders with a cash price for their preferred shares that is ?substantially above the published prices? since they were delisted from trading on the New York Stock Exchange on March 25, 2003 and since the company?s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on August 23, 2003.

The two affiliated Bermuda holding companies LaSalle Re and Trenwick Group Ltd. filed for protection in the US and filed motions with Bermuda?s Supreme Court to start wind-up proceedings as part of a restructuring and in accordance with a letter of intent with creditors which set out a plan to restructure some $375 million in debts owed to the group?s principal lenders. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy case was dismissed by order of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on November 2 this year. Two weeks later the Supreme Court of Bermuda issued an order commencing the liquidation of LaSalle Re Holdings Limited by joint provisional liquidators Mike Morrison of KPMG in Bermuda and John Wardrop of KPMG in London .

LaSalle Cover Company LLC is a recently formed investment partnership whose members are Costa Brava Partnership III, L.P. and White Bay Capital Management LLC. LaSalle Cover Company LLC is not affiliated with LaSalle Re Holdings or any other insurance company.

While the Preferred Shares have a right to a quarterly dividend of 8.75 percent, LaSalle Re Holdings suspended this indefinitely on November 29, 2002 and stated that ?it is unlikely that any of the holders of the preferred shares will receive any return on their investment in the near term, if at all.?

LaSalle Cover Company says that the price of the tender offer represents a 639 percent premium over the average daily closing prices for the fourth quarter of 2004 through December 22, 2004. In addition it represents a 618 percent premium over the average daily closing prices for the 2004 calendar year through December 22, 2004.