Reinsurance Centre Holdings Inc. (ZRC), it was revealed yesterday.

Under the proposed deal, public stock holders in the New York-based casualty and property reinsurer would receive $36 per share in cash or an aggregate of about $332.5 million for about nine million publicly held shares.

The acquisition price represents an 18.5 percent premium over Wednesday's closing market price of $30.375.

At the end of 1996, ZRC had about 26.2 million of its common stock outstanding of which about 17.2 million, or 66 percent, were owned by the Zurich Group.

A year ago, Zurich lifted ownership to 66 percent from 57 percent when it paid Fund American Enterprises Holdings, Inc. $30.50 per share for its stake.

"Zurich's US unit has been a good generator of profits so it makes sense to gain complete control,'' Bank Julius Baer & Co. AG analyst Beat Alpiger said in a Bloomberg News story.

The offer is subject to board of director and shareholder approval and other conditions.

Zurich expects to close the transaction in second quarter.

"We are quite pleased with the development of ZRC since its formation in 1993. The management has put together a highly qualified, skilled team which has produced a leading company in the North American reinsurance arena in an extremely short period of time,'' Zurich Group chairman and CEO Rolf Huppi said.

Mr. Huppi also said the move will integrate ZRC, focused on traditional reinsurance, with wholly-owned subsidiary Centre Reinsurance, which provides finite risk and other non-traditional solutions.

Headquartered in Switzerland, the Zurich Group operates in 48 countries.

In 1995, Zurich wrote $23 billion in premium income and at December 31, 1995, had $74.8 billion in investments and $9.1 billion in capital and surplus.