Benfield Group, the London-based independent reinsurance broker, yesterday announced that it will list on the London Stock Exchange.

Benfield had been expected to float on the New York Stock Exchange and redomicile its holding group to Bermuda to give it the choice between listing in the US and UK.

But new regulatory fetters in the US have put the company off a New York listing and Grahame Chilton, the chief executive, decided the costs were too high compared with the London Stock Exchange.

The firm was built up by the late Matthew Harding, the former vice-chairman of Chelsea Football Club, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 1996.

Earlier this year, the group was understood to have rejected an offer from the rival broker Marsh & McLennan to buy the company for $1.2bn (?773m). A spokesman for Benfield said yesterday, however, that the company did not hold acquisition talks with Marsh & McLennan and no due diligence on the group was carried out.

Benfield has grown to become the world's third-largest reinsurance broker through a series of acquisitions. Last year it bought the broker Greig Fester for $120m before buying the Dallas-based broker EW Blanch Holdings for $179m.

The London listing is planned for early next year and the company has, as yet, put no price on the offering, saying markets are too volatile to give predictions. Estimates based on last year's ?269m turnover would suggest a figure of between ?600m and ?810m.

Benfield reported a loss of ?51m last year, compared with a profit of ?13m the year before, arising from write-downs in the US. Since then the company has been enjoying the upturn in insurance trading conditions.