Bermuda-based re/insurer Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd has agreed to pay $321.5 million to buy out the approximately 15 percent stake of Perry Corp, one of its founding shareholders.Endurance will buy back 7.14 million shares and options to buy 10,000 more, the company said said yesterday in a statement. The stock will be acquired for $44.99 a share, the closing price on January 21 on the New York Stock Exchange.The class of 2001 company said it was using existing cash on hand to fund the repurchase.Perry Corp, a hedge fund manager run by Richard Perry who has a seat on the Endurance board, urged Endurance to seek merger partners last February, a comment made in a regulatory filing.Perry also commented in that filing that the change of leadership at the company, with Kenneth LeStrange retiring and being replaced by David Cash as CEO and William Jewett as president, did not position Endurance “to capitalise on industry consolidation opportunities”.In the 11 months since Perry’s comments became public, Endurance’s share price has risen by 18 percent.Endurance said the repurchase is separate from Endurance’s existing seven million share repurchase programme, authorised by its board of directors in August 2010.