Ariel Reinsurance, a new $1 billion Bermuda reinsurer, is already attracting steady interest from reinsurance buyers, its chief executive Donald Kramer said yesterday.

Mr. Kramer told Ariel has already seen numerous submissions from companies eager to buy policies to mitigate the chance of future losses from numerous types of events ? from hurricanes to lawsuits targeting company executives.

Reinsurers contract to take some of the risk in policies that insurers have already sold to corporations and individuals.

?We are up and running, processing business, binding (policies) and adding them to our books,? Mr. Kramer said.

Ariel, along with nine other new ventures, has already won a financial strength rating from influential ratings firm, A.M. Best.

The company earned an ?A-? financial strength rating on Friday, and announced over the week-end that its $1 billion in initial equity capital was in hand.

The company is backed investors including the Blackstone Group LP, Texas Pacific Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners, Oak Hill Capital Partners, Olympus Partners, affiliates of Bain Capital, SAB Capital and Eton Park Capital Management.

Olympus, a Connecticut-based private equity firm, also backed Mr. Kramer?s 1993 venture, Tempest Re, which was later sold to ACE.

Ariel, named for the sprite in Shakespeare?s Bermuda-based epic, The Tempest, was ?substantially oversubscribed?, meaning it had to turn away investors, Mr. Kramer said.

Investors are lining up behind insurance and reinsurance ventures, both new and established, gearing up to take advantage of an expected rise in premium pricing when policies are renewed for 2006.

?We really attracted the best of the best in terms of private equity investors,? Mr. Kramer explained.

So far an estimated $15 billion in capital has flown into the sector to back a wave of 11 new major insurance and reinsurance start-ups ? ten forming in Bermuda, and one in the Cayman Islands.

Ariel, unlike some of the other 2005 entrants, plans to sell a broad range of reinsurance policies.

Numerous in the ?Class of 2005? ? the unofficial moniker for the wave of new insurance and reinsurance companies forming ? have business plans focused on the sale of property-catastrophe insurance and reinsurance, as demand for this coverage spikes in response to record 2005 hurricane activity.

And the company intends to broaden its business into direct insurance, based on market demand.

Mr. Kramer said Ariel was able to secure $1 billion in capital and get its offices off the ground ? including I.T. and modelling systems ? in about ten weeks.

In comparison, Mr. Kramer said it took him three months to raise the $500 million in initial capital for Tempest, more than a decade ago.

The speed with which Ariel was able to establish its infrastructure had much to do with a deal brokered with UK insurer Goshawk to take over the office and systems of its Bermuda reinsurer, Rosemont Re.

Rosemont was effectively put into run-off after being hit by heavy losses from this year?s record storm activity.

Ariel has already staffed its key positions, and expects to have between 20 and 30 staff by the end of the year.

Mr. Kramer, who is both chairman and chief executive, is joined by George Rivaz, who founded Tempest Re with Mr. Kramer, and Mark Herman, who was formerly head of ACE Bermuda. Mr. Rivaz and Mr. Herman are co-presidents of Ariel.

?I?m so pleased to be reunited with several of my former colleagues who helped make Tempest Re into such a great success. I know that we can do it again,? said Mr. Kramer, who has also retained some of Rosemont?s staff, including Russell Brooke and Jonathan Beck, CEO and CFO respectively.

Mr. Brooke, who worked with Mr. Kramer previously at Tempest, is Ariel?s chief operating officer, and Mr. Beck, who previously worked for several ACE units, is chief financial officer.

Ariel Reinsurance Limited, licensed as a ?class four? Bermuda reinsurer by the Bermuda Monetary Authority in early November, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ariel Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda-based holding company established in October.