Rating agency Standard & Poor's has upgraded Paris Re, which was recently bought by Bermuda-based Partner Re, to single A plus, reflecting the strategic importance of Paris Re's core and guaranteed operating subsidiaries to the parent company. The rating has a positive outlook. S&P said that, following the legal merger of Paris Re into Partner Re Holdings, it understood that,beginning in 2010 and subject to regulatory approval, "(Partner Re) is over time likely to integrate the rated Paris Re entities into the existing core subsidiaries and/or branch operations of the (Partner Re) group". Partner Re's core operating subsidiaries are currently one notch above the rating for Paris Re, a differential consistent with S&P's rating methodology.

US p/c insurer Hanover Insurance Group has agreed to buy the renewal rights to OneBeacon Insurance Group's small- and middle-market commercial business with effect from January 1. The deal adds 20 niche programmes to Massachusetts-based Hanover's portfolio, boosting annual premiums by up to $400m. Hanover said that the deal would advance the group's previously announced expansion into the western US. Earlier this week, Hanover said that it would begin writing new business on January 1 in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington. "We are very excited about the progress we have made in the west and about the potential for this renewal rights agreement to accelerate our growth plans", said Hannover chief executive Frederick Eppinger. "There are tremendous synergies between our western expansion initiative and this renewal rights arrangement".

has announced the successful completion of its EUR2bn ($3bn) rights issue. Total demand was EUR5.6bn, a subscription rate of 272%. AXA said that "the proceeds from the capital increase will be used to seize future acquisition opportunities, primarily in high-growth markets, including the potential buyout of minority interests in Central and Eastern Europe and the transaction proposed to Axa Asia-Pacific Holdings, while maintaining a strong balance sheet".

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner came under more pressure yesterday for his role in last year's bailout of New York-based insurer AIG, when Mr Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and his acceptance of a debt-for-equity deal in March, by which time he was US Treasury Secretary. Republicans Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative Roy Blunt have sent letters to Mr Geithner and to William Dudley, current president of the New York Fed, asking what the US has gained by accepting more equity in AIG in return for reducing AIG's governmental debt by $25bn to $17bn. In a Bloomberg report, Senator Grassley said that the change in March this year of the conditions relating to AIG's debt seemed to have no justification "other than to manipulate the rating agencies into giving AIG an artificially higher rating than it deserves". Representative Blunt has asked Mr Geithner to appear before Congress to discuss why the New York Fed decided to pay banks 100% to retire credit default swaps held by AIG, when only days before AIG had been negotiating for a discount of up to 40%. AIG paid $32.5bn to retire the swaps to both US and European financial institutions. Mr Blunt said that "thirteen billion in wasted taxpayer dollars at a time of economic crisis cries out for explanation".