month, Stockholm Re (Bermuda) Ltd. was placed into compulsory winding up on Wednesday.

The company is preliminarily estimating total liabilities of $64 million and a capital deficiency of nearly $14 million.

Mr. Mark Smith of Deloitte & Touche in Bermuda and Mr. David Morgan of Touche Ross London were appointed by the Supreme Court as joint provisional liquidators for the property, marine and aviation reinsurer that last March was placed in run-off and ceased writing business.

Chairman Mr. Hakan Danielsson said yesterday that the company had determined that it was in the best interests of the creditors to place the company into compulsory winding up.

Meanwhile, Mr. Smith said: "We will be looking at the situation over the weekend and early next week and would hope by that stage to have an action plan as to where we're going. It really is very early stages, yet.'' About 14 staff are expected to remain on the job to assist him and the other provisional liquidator.

The straw that may have broke the camel's back was a $16 million claim that more than three weeks ago took the company's executives by surprise. That claim will now come under close scrutiny by the provisional liquidators in the next couple of weeks.

The company was incorporated in Bermuda in 1979 to provide insurance and reinsurance cover for various world-wide marine, aviation and property risks.

All classes of business were to be protected by excess of loss reinsurance.

In 1992, Stockholm Re was said to have $20.5 million in capital and surplus, a stark comparison to the sizeable insurance operations Bermuda has seen. And it suffered as a result of a significant amount of major losses in recent years.

President Mr. John Williams said ten months ago that with such a small size, the company was hardly a viable entity. It had not been able to raise new capital and prior options for restructuring were no longer available.

That realisation last March, came a year after the company's Swedish parent, farmers' mutual insurer Lansforsakringsbolangens (LF-AB), originally saw Stockholm as an ideal candidate for restructuring through a capital injection from a third party to get it large enough to compete on the world market.

It was as a result of the adverse claims development and the requirement to significantly increase reserves, the company ceased underwriting new business in the early part of last year.

Mr. Williams is the president of Eastney Investments Ltd. and a director of Eastney's insurance management subsidiary, the Powerscourt group, which last March took over the management of the run-off of the company.

They have over the last ten months engaged in a comprehensive analysis of the existing and anticipated claims position.

Mr. Danielsson said the company has also held a number of meetings with the Registrar of Companies in Bermuda in order to keep him informed of the company's financial position.

A little more than three weeks ago that the company felt that its financial position left reserves that would be sufficient to satisfy known claims.

That's when the significant new claim surfaced relating to business underwritten in the late 1980s, when the company was known as National Underwriters (Reinsurance) Ltd.

The directors and managers of Stockholm Re, reported Mr. Danielsson, had previously received limited communication from the claimant.

He said: "As of this date, the quantum of the claim has been expressed as falling within a broad range.

"Whilst the managers of the company continue to carry out their analysis of the company's position, it has been determined that the protection of the court is now necessary to preserve the rights of all creditors.'' The assets of the company are said to be invested in a secure and conservative manner and the administrative costs will continue to be kept to a minimum in order to be in a position to distribute the maximum funds to creditors.