Bermuda insurer PartnerRe Ltd. announced last week that it intends, subject to market conditions, to raise $350 million of new capital in the form of trust preferred and convertible preferred securities, before the end of the year.

Patrick Thiele, CEO and President of PartnerRe Ltd. said: We have decided to raise new capital in order to provide additional capacity to our clients and to ensure the maintenance of our very strong financial strength ratings."

Mr. Thiele said the capital increase will also allow them to support the increased business opportunities that they anticipate for 2002.

He added: "As we have said previously, our outlook for next year is very positive and we now expect premium income to grow by at least 30 percent during 2002. We have set as a target for 2002 operating earnings in excess of $5.50 per share and a return on beginning book value in excess of 17 percent (barring unexpectedly large loss events), despite issuing new securities and larger than expected losses in the third quarter 2001."

PartnerRe advised that a high frequency of large events not related to the September 11 attacks, including Tropical Storm Nari, the Toulouse, France chemical explosion, a large surety loss and a refinery fire, resulted in incremental losses of $25 million for the company. As a result, PartnerRe expects a third quarter operating loss of $6.65 - $6.75 per share.