Flagstone Reinsurance Holdings Ltd. became the first of the ?Class of 2005? Bermuda reinsurers to announce plans to sell shares to the public when it registered an initial public offering of up to $175 million in stock.

Flagstone Reinsurance, which was formed in December last year, made a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The company, whose chairman is West End Capital management chief Mark Byrne, writes property, property catastrophe and specialty and casualty reinsurance.

The company plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ?FSR.?

The company said it plans to use proceeds of the offering to increase its underwriting capacity. Proceeds also will be used for general corporate purposes.

Lehman Brothers Inc. and Citigroup were listed as underwriters for the offering.

For the six months ended June 30, Flagstone had net income of $31.85 million on gross premiums written of $214.1 million. Net premiums earned were $56.2 million while the company had investment income of $14.8 million.

Loss and loss adjustment expenses were $9.8 million while acquisition costs were $8 million. general and administrative expenses were $16,2 million.

The company?s combined ratio was 60.8 percent.

Flagstone had assets of $924.5 million and total shareholders? equity of $742.2 million.

Flagstone?s prospectus also revealed what it claims to be its ?unique? operating structure. While its main underwriting office is in Bermuda, its data centre and back officer work is done in Halifax, Nova Scotia and part of its catastrophe modelling and risk analysis is done in the low cost jurisdiction of Hyderabad in India.The company is also building up a separate European underwriting platform in Switzerland, while its international reinsurance marketing is carried out in London.

It has a total of 88 employees. Its chief executive officer is former Centre Solutions chief executive David Brown.

The prospectus also revealed Flagstone has a 28.5 percent stake in Cayman Islands-based insurer Island Heritage Holdings Ltd.