which is partly owned by Bermuda-based Centre Re, closed at $35 on their first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

ZRC's shares went as high as $363 before dropping back to $35, which was the price at which they entered the Exchange.

ZRC sold 8.55 million shares in an initial public offering, 6.4 million of which were offered in the United States and 2.15 million abroad, of which about 30,000 are estimated to have ended up in Bermuda.

ZRC Holdings was set up earlier this year to underwrite business in the North American market for brokered traditional property and casualty reinsurance.

The company's operating subsidiary, Zurich Reinsurance Centre, has become the principal underwriting affiliate of Zurich Insurance Company and Centre Re (Bermuda).

Mr. Steven Gluckstern, president and CEO of Bermuda-based Centre Re Holdings, is in charge of the day-to-day operations of ZRC, which is registered in Connecticut.

In a separate development yesterday, Centre Re in New York and the Skandia America Reinsurance Corporation jointly announced an agreement for Centre Re-NY to reinsure SARC's finite reinsurance portfolio, effective from May 13, 1993.

A press statement said that the transfer of Skandia's finite portfolio to Centre Re-NY will allow Skandia to focus on traditional property/casualty business.

Centre Re-NY will assume financial responsibility for all run-off of SARC's finite reinsurance business and will be handling all associated administrative functions.

SARC's finite reinsurance executives, Mr. Emanuel Pinto and Mr. Michael R.

Wiener, will join Centre Re-NY.