CCR Re to rebrand to Arundo Re from January

Paris-based CCR Re has unveiled plans to rebrand to Arundo Re, in a move that comes just over a year after the reinsurer’s breakaway from state-backed Caisse Centrale de Réassurance (CCR).

The rebrand will take effect from 16 January 2025, CCR Re announced in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.

It comes shortly after CCR Re confirmed in its half-year results that work undertaken in the first half of the year and throughout the summer has enabled the carrier to “virtually complete” its autonomy from CCR.

As previously reported, CCR Re was acquired by a consortium of mutual insurers made up of SMABTP and MACSF in a deal first announced in February 2023.

The deal closed in July last year following receipt of all relevant regulatory approvals and valued CCR Re at close to €1bn.

The deal also included a capital injection of €200mn into CCR Re from its new owners to spur growth.

CCR first confirmed in September 2022 that it planned to sell a majority stake in its open market international reinsurer by July 2023, in a move designed to fuel the unit’s ambitious target to become a €2bn gross written premium business within five years.

CCR Re was reorganised into a standalone company in 2016 to write open market reinsurance business, including an international portfolio, without the benefit of CCR’s full government guarantee.

Under the stewardship of CEO Bertrand Labilloy and deputy CEO Laurent Montador, CCR Re has consistently looked to grow its share of international business to diversify from its core French exposures. Growth has accelerated further amid the more recent hard market conditions.

The reinsurer earlier this month reported a 7 percent jump in turnover to €970mn for the first half of 2024 and posted a combined ratio 88.8 percent, an improvement of 6 percentage points year on year.

CCR Re said this improvement was mainly driven by a lack of major natural disasters compared with the prior year.