Allied World Assurance Company chief executive officer Scott Carmilani has insisted that his company’s offer to merge with US reinsurer Transatlantic Holdings is superior to that of rival Validus Holdings.In a statement released yesterday, Mr Carmilani said Validus’s offer was an attempt to acquire Transatlantic at a significant discount to book value and it would also lead to limited flexibility in the writing of property-catastrophe business.Last week, Validus made an offer valued at $3.5 billion for Transatlantic, which included an $8 cash component for Transatlantic shareholders. The move was an attempt to derail the US company’s proposed merger with Allied, which was announced last month and which is valued at $3.2 billion.“Our transaction fully satisfies the key strategic goals outlined by Transatlantic with greater certainty,” Mr Carmilani said.“We believe that Validus’ proposal is inferior. It cannot provide Transatlantic’s shareholders with the same value that our merger of equals can. Validus’ unsolicited proposal is an attempt to acquire Transatlantic at a significant discount to book value.“In addition, the needed reduction to Transatlantic’s property catastrophe business in the inferior Validus takeover to a level compliant with Transatlantic’s enterprise risk management risk tolerances would lead to limited property catastrophe writing flexibility.” Mr Carmilani, who under the Allied-Transatlantic agreement would be the CEO of the combined company, added that the rating agencies had reacted positively to the Allied-Transatlantic plan.Allied World noted that both Standard & Poors’ (A strong) and Moody’s (A2) had made positive indications relating to the company’s financial strength ratings, and AM Best had affirmed its A (excellent) financial strength rating.Mr Carmilani said: “The rating agencies have reacted favourably to our superior transaction indicating that Transatlantic’s operating companies’ financial strength ratings will remain unchanged after the transaction.“These stronger indicative ratings (as compared to the indicative ratings direction under the Validus proposal) will benefit the combined company.”