Mr. de St. Paer: XL has three major businesses: insurance, reinsurance, and financial products and services. Focusing on each of those, our insurance business was founded in 1986, and our strategy today is quite similar to the original foundation of the company. We provide risk management and specialty insurance products to large corporations, principally the Fortune 1000, or equivalent internationally. With our recent acquisition of XL Winterthur International from the Winterthur Group of Switzerland, we've broadened our international presence, serving a broader range of European as well as US, Asian and other insurance clients worldwide. We've merged our risk management business under the XL Winterthur International umbrella. Our insurance business is largely risk management as just mentioned. We also provide environmental insurance, and I will note here that this does not include any pre-1986 risks, such as asbestos. The environmental risks we cover are short-term, shock environmental exposures, such as sudden fuel tank leaks or similar incidents that require limited scope mitigation. We also offer space and aviation insurance, marine and energy insurance, professional liability products warrantee, programs, war and political risk and surety covers, among others. The reinsurance side of our business was added later. The principal growth in that area was a result of XL's acquisition in 1998 of Mid-Ocean Reinsurance. We initially invested in the formation of that company in 1993, and then later completed the acquisition. That is the core of what is now XL Re LTD, based here in Bermuda with operations worldwide. XL Re's major areas of participation are in property, both in general per risk property reinsurance and also property catastrophe reinsurance. Also, a quarter of our reinsurance business is in casualty covers. And, we have more limited participation in marine and energy and aviation and space. Our third business segment is financial products and services. There our principal focus is on financial guarantee insurance and capital market related insurance products, such as weather derivatives. Basically we're capitalizing on the convergence of the capital and insurance marketplaces.
Tickers included in this excerpt: XL
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