Bermuda-based Catalina Holdings (Bermuda) Ltd is already seeking further potential new purchases after announcing an agreement to acquire Glacier Re last week.So says Chris Fagan, chief executive officer of the five-year-old company that specialises in acquiring companies in run-off.The acquisition of Swiss company Glacier Re will substantially increase the size of Catalina’s business and give the company a foothold in continental Europe.Speaking with The Royal Gazette yesterday, Mr Fagan stressed that Catalina was targeting businesses with between $25 million and $500 million of capital.“Basically we are a consolidator of a series of businesses in run-off,” Mr Fagan said. “We are a capital player.“There is a lot of noise in the reinsurance run-off industry, where there are a lot of players, many of them relatively small, who manage other people’s liabilities. That is not what we do.”An insurance company or segment of a company goes into run-off when it ceases to write new business and is managed to deal with its continuing obligations, in particular claims from policyholders.While many of the run-off headlines are claimed by companies that have folded, more of the run-off business emanates from thriving companies discontinuing a segment or a line of business.Mr Fagan expects there to be good opportunities in the market for Catalina to make further acquisitions.There were numerous reasons for businesses going into run-off, he said. “Sometimes established investors may want to pull out because the returns are not great,” he said.“Glacier Re was a good example of that. There was no particular disaster that made them stop.“Also, in the European Union, Solvency II will impose greater solvency requirements on insurers and that will push down return on equity. That will make some companies question what they’re doing.”Glacier Re had total assets of $1.2 billion, gross technical reserves of $466 million, and net assets of $374 million. Catalina did not disclose terms but said the purchase price was at a discount to net asset value.Formed in 2005, Catalina acquired Overseas Partners in September of that year for $170 million. Its other acquisitions include Quanta Capital Holdings in 2008, Alea UK in 2009 and Western General Insurance last year.With the Glacier Re acquisition taken into account, Catalina will have total assets of $2 billion and a global workforce of about 80.Catalina’s rivals in the reinsurance run-off market include fellow Bermuda company Enstar Group and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.Mr Fagan said the company was well equipped to compete. “We are very well established and the businesses we have bought we have done well out of,” he said.“We have some very significant blue-chip investors as shareholders and we’ll have a $2 billion balance sheet, post acquisition. So we’re a pretty substantial entity.”The company, which has offices in London and New York, and soon Glacier’s offices in Zurich, as well as its Bermuda headquarters in Cumberland House, on Victoria Street, has a team of experts who weigh up the value and liabilities inherent in each business they consider buying.Mr Fagan says the company is “actuary rich” and that most of the remainder of its staff have financial, legal or claims expertise.Catalina has assembled an experienced senior management team, including Mr Fagan himself, the former chief executive of Goshawk Insurance Holdings, and chief financial officer John Weale, who was previously the CFO of reinsurer IPC Holdings, before it was taken over by Validus Holdings.Bermuda is the right domicile for Catalina, Mr Fagan said, because not only does it have the necessary infrastructure, but it is also a world reinsurance centre, and a home to potential acquisition targets.