General Re is a reinsurance company. It is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation. Image File history File links GenRe. ... Reinsurance is a means by which an insurance company can protect itself against the risk of losses with other insurance companies. ... Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA, NYSE: BRKB) is a massive holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. ...
General Re is one of the world's largest reinsurers. As a reinsurer, it "insures insurance companies" i.e. it will pay a portion of an insurance company's claims in exchange for a portion of the premium received by the insurance company for policies that cover those claims. "Gen Re" is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by legendary investor Warren Buffett. In good years, General Re is a large source of cash flow to Berkshire Hathaway and has provided much of the cash that is then used by the company to acquire additional subsidiaries. However, since General Re was acquired in December of 1998, it has run into a string of business and profitability issues that may have Buffett questioning the wisdom of the acquisition. Problems have included emergence of losses on unprofitable business written in the 1990's and earlier, concentration of risk (and therefore huge claims) in reinsurance agreements covering 9/11 losses and most recently, questionable accounting practices on "finite risk" reinsurance contracts written with insurance giant American International Group in 2002. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA, NYSE: BRKB) is a massive holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. ... Warren Edward Buffett (b. ... American International Group, Inc. ...
Under the terms of the agreement, GeneralRe has agreed to grant Berkshire options to purchase, subject to certain terms, up to 19.9% of the outstanding GeneralRe shares at the transaction price, subject to a cash limit of 3% of the aggregate consideration.
Furthermore, GeneralRe will be free to reduce its reliance on the retrocessional market over time, and thereby have substantial additional funds available for investment.
GeneralRe Corporation is a holding company for global reinsurance and related risk management operations.
Berkshire also said it and GeneralRe are cooperating with an investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division, relating to one of GeneralRe's former clients that it did not identify.
GeneralRe and four of its current and former employees first received subpoenas for documents in that investigation in October 2003.
GeneralRe, based in Stamford, Conn., is one of the four largest reinsurance companies in the world.
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