A $1.4 billion insurance and reinsurance company has moved its headquarters to Bermuda as the latest step in its business development.

CIFG's France-domiciled holding company CIFG Holding and its Triple-A reinsurance firm CIFG Guaranty, also domiciled in France, established new headquarters on the Island at the start of this month.

The private company, which has been renamed CIFG Holding Limited, is the holding company that owns the firms making up the CIFG Group, including the New York-based Triple-A primary financial guaranty subsidiary CIFG Assurance North America Inc. and Triple-A financial guarantor CIFG Europe, which is based in Paris.

CIFG Holding and CIFG Guaranty have set up operations in Bermuda, with Gabriel Topor, currently a senior officer in the risk management department of CIFG in New York assuming the role of CIFG Guaranty's chief underwriting officer based on the Island.

"Establishing headquarters in bermuda is an important step in our ongoing business development," said Jacques Rolfo, CEO of the CIFG Group. "This move will increase CIFG's operating efficiencies while improving our profitability and strengthening our capital base."

The CIFG Group's primary financial guaranty operations will remain in their current headquarters, while CIFG Europe will stay a French-resident entity and CIFG Assurance North America will remain a New York-domiciled company.

Meanwhile, existing reinsurance and capital support agreements between CIFG Guaranty and its primary financial guaranty subsidiaries remain in place.

CIFG consists of a group of financial guaranty companies (CIFG Assurance North America, CIFG Europe and CIFG Guaranty) capitalised with $1.4bn in claims paying resources and rated Triple-A by Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch.

It provides insurance and reinsurance for investment grade transactions in the structured finance, public finance and project finance markets in the US and Europe and their shareholder is Natixis, a major international bank offering a range of business activities and services in the retail, commercial and investment banking sectors.