Bermuda company CastlePoint Holdings Ltd., which provides products to insurance companies, is expected to be the first of the Class of 2005 reinsurance companies to go public when its initial public offering takes place this week.

CastlePoint filed its prospectus for an IPO in January and is expected to sell 6.1 million shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange for between $13 and $15 a share, raising between $79.3 million and $91.5 million.

CastlePoint was formed in the wake of the record 2005 hurricane season in November, 2005 to provide property and casualty insurance and reinsurance products and services primarily to small insurance companies and programme underwriting agents in the US.

Tower Group Inc., a New York-based specialty property and casualty insurance company, is CastlePoint’s sponsor and the company’s largest customer, according to the company’s prospectus.

Tower Group currently owns 11.6 percent interest in CastlePoint, the filing said.

The company said it intends to use the net proceeds from the IPO to further capitalise its reinsurance subsidiary and for general corporate purposes.

The company, the first Bermuda company to float shares this year, expcts to list its shares on the under the symbol CPHL.

Friedman Billings Ramsey is listed as the underwriter for the offering.

Since inception to September 30, 2006, the company reported net income of $3.74 million on total revenue of $55.5 million.

Its proposed Nasdaq symbol is CPHL.

Castle Point is one of three Class of 2005 reinsurers to file prospectuses for IPOs.

Validus Holdings Ltd. submitted its prospectus in January and said it could raise $200 million.

It was originally backed by Aquiline Capital Partners, a private-equity firm run by Jeffrey Greenberg, the deposed chief executive of insurance broker Marsh and McLennan.

And Flagstone Reinsurance hopes to raise $159.2 million from its IPO, The Royal Gazette reported last week.

It expects to sell its shares for between $12.50 and $14.50.

Several Bermuda reinsurers had IPOs in 2006. Allied World Assurance (AWAC) raised $300 million in July, XL Capital spinoff Security Capital raised $462 million and Ram Re raised $122 million.