company's common shares in open market or private purchase transactions.

The authorisation came as ACE had repurchased all but $7.4 million of shares in the last $100-million authorisation from last August, which is now replaced and superseded by the latest action.

ACE made the announcement on Friday after a company board meeting where directors also declared a quarterly dividend of 18 cents a share, payable April 18 to shareholders of record at the close of business March 31.

Christopher Z. Marshall, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said: "We believe we can, for the most part, continue to use our capital in the insurance market. That's our number one priority. We can still do that and we've provided evidence of that with the Tempest acquisition and the Lloyd's acquisition.

"But share repurchasing is an important tool for a company, a financial management tool. And we have been using the authorisation. We put out a $75-million share repurchase in February, 1995 and used about 72 percent of that authorisation, prior to replacing it in August, 1996 with a $100-million authorisation.

"And we've used just over 92 percent of that authorisation and now put in another $100-million authorisation.''