XL shareholders support Bermuda move

XL Group’s shareholders have approved the company’s plans to become a Bermudian company.

The international insurer and reinsurer, which operates under the XL Catlin brand, plans to complete its redomestication to the island from Ireland within the next three months, according to a Reuters report.

Mike McGavick, XL’s chief executive officer, said: “We are pleased that our shareholders are supportive of our plan to set up our corporate home in Bermuda.

“Given, in particular, our longstanding and substantial operations in Bermuda that have been bolstered by the Catlin Group Ltd acquisition, and Bermuda’s position within the international re/insurance market, including Bermuda’s recent achievement of Solvency II equivalency, we believe a change in the country of domicile of our parent company to Bermuda will be advantageous to the company and its shareholders.”

XL started operations in Bermuda in the mid-1980s, but its holding company’s corporate domicile was in the Cayman Islands until the firm moved to Ireland six years ago.

Bermuda earned Solvency II third-country equivalence earlier this year, meaning that the European Union considers the island’s insurance industry regulation to be of an equivalent standard to its own. This in turn means Bermudian-based insurance groups are not competitively disadvantaged when they do business in the EU.

XL added that it did not expect the redomestication to have any impact on its effective tax rate or financial results.