Mr. Willkomm: The company was founded in 1998 and went public late that year. We are focused on two businesses: the life reinsurance business and the wealth management business, which is the issuance of variable insurance products to very wealthy individuals and their families. During the course of 1999 we acquired a company called Harbourton Reassurance, which was a U.S. based reinsurance company. Shortly thereafter we hired a group of individuals and opened Scottish Re, which is our U.S. reinsurance operation. The business that Scottish Re set out to do was the natural extension of the reinsurance business that we had been doing prior to the acquisition of Harbourton. This summer, we announced that we had agreed to acquire World-Wide Reassurance of the UK from Pacific Life for approximately 78 million in stock. In connection with the transaction, Pacific Life will become our largest shareholder, with an ownership stake of approximately 22%. The acquisition of World-Wide is a further extension of our reinsurance business. They are specialist life reinsurers operating throughout the world, in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and to a limited extent, the U.S. The World-Wide team is comprised of very respected specialists in these markets. This transaction helps to round out the geographic scope of our business very nicely.
TWST: Prior to the World-Wide acquisition what was the geographic footprint?
Mr. Willkomm: Principally North America.
Tickers included in this excerpt: 917490.BE
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.