Investors who injected $763 million in Arch Capital Group in November, 2001 have been rewarded with an additional $84.9 million worth of preference shares under the terms of their original investment.

The investors, who put in the money last November to help Arch launch Arch Worldwide Insurance and Reinsurance Group and to enable it to take advantage of capacity shortages after the September 11 terrorist attacks, will receive 2.8 million preference shares after the insurer's share prices exceeded $30.

In a statement yesterday, Arch said: "Under the terms of the agreement, if the closing price for ACGL's common shares was at least $30 for 20 out of 30 consecutive trading days, ACGL was required to issue to the investors additional preference shares such that the per share purchase price is reduced by $1.50. "This condition was satisfied after the close of trading on Monday, December 16, 2002.

Following this adjustment, there are 38,844,665 outstanding preference shares.

These preference shares are convertible on a one-for-one basis into common shares of ACGL at the option of the holder and are mandatorily convertible upon the occurrence of certain events."

"There are 27,725,334 common shares outstanding, resulting in a combined total of 66,569,999 common and preference shares currently outstanding."

Arch's shares closed at $30.25 yesterday, meaning that if the investors converted the shares today, they would be worth $84.9 million.

In January, Arch's shares were trading at around $20.