Ace Shareholders Vote Yes for Redomestication

Shareholders of ACE Ltd. have voted in favor of initial steps to redomesticate the company to Switzerland. If approved, the move will transfer the company's place of incorporation from the Cayman Islands—where ACE was established in 1985—to Zurich, Switzerland.  
 
The company says its Bermuda operations will be unaffected, and ACE executive offices will remain in Bermuda principally, according to a company spokesperson. ACE Group Holdings' executive offices are expected to remain in New York.  
 
Hamilton-based ACE is one of Bermuda's largest insurers and reinsurers, writing around $12 billion in net premiums in 2007.  
 
Shareholders attending ACE's annual general meeting voted Thursday to "approve de-registration from the Cayman Islands and the company's continuation to Zurich, Switzerland," according to documents filed with Securities and Exchange Commission. The annual general meeting is expected to resume July 14. ACE expects final shareholder voting to be complete next week.  
 
The move prompted Standard & Poor's Corp. to drop ACE from its S&P 500 Index, saying the company "is in the process of changing its place of incorporation to Switzerland, thus rendering it ineligible for inclusion in the S&P U.S indices."  
 
ACE was also removed from the Russell Index, a benchmark equity index run by the Russell Investment Group.  
 
Analysts, however, were not concerned about those moves.

Source: Source: Business Insurance | Published on July 14, 2008