It’s been rumoured for a couple of months now, but according to The Financial Times, it’s a done deal — Goldman Sachs has sold off a 75 percent stake in Bermuda-based Ariel Re.The Wall Street investment bank only bought Ariel’s insurance and reinsurance operations last April in an effort to profit more from reinsurance premiums and diversify away from its core investment banking business.But in January, The Royal Gazette learned the bank was looking to divest most of its reinsurance business to high net worth investors less than a year after acquiring it, a move a Goldman Sachs spokesperson would not comment on.On January 16, during the company’s earnings call, Goldman’s chief financial officer finally confirmed the company was “considering” the sale, saying that regulatory requirements such as Basel III capital requirements triggered the decision.“Given the Basel III capital changes that we incur as owner of our own reinsurance business, we are considering a potential sale of a majority stake in the business,” Goldman Sachs CFO, Harvey Schwartz said on the call.Now Goldman, the fifth largest bank in the US by assets, has reportedly completed the sale of majority of its $1.4 billion Global Atlantic reinsurance business, The Financial Times says.The Global Atlantic business consisted of a life and annuity operation as well as a P&C platform that was augmented by the acquisition of Ariel Holdings’ Bermudian business last year.According to sources cited by The Financial Times, instead of selling Ariel outright to a hedge fund or private equity firm, Goldman made a private placement to investors and put the operation, to be called Global Atlantic, into a new corporate vehicle.The bank would retain a 25 percent non-controlling stake in the new business, enabling it to avoid having to hold increased regulatory capital against the reinsurer, the report stated.The new Basel III regulations require banks to hold more capital. They were created by regulators in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis in an effort to make the global banking system more resilient. Under the proposed rules by the US Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the biggest banks would have to hold the most capital. The rules are forcing banks to look to sell businesses they see as non-core to meet those new capital requirements.Goldman Sachs generates the most revenue from equity trading of any bank in the world. Its equities division generated about $2 billion more than its closest competitor in the first nine months of the year. $1.08 billion of that revenue comes from its reinsurance business.The unit produced $1.078 billion of net revenue in 2012, including $317 million in the fourth quarter alone. That’s up from $880 million in 2011, including $158 million in the fourth quarter of 2011.The reinsurance segment, a part of the firm’s securities division, contributed approximately 13 percent of Goldman Sachs’ equity revenue last year — a significant part of its business. It’s also a part of Goldman’s business, which has been growing.There’s no word yet on the amount of money raised through the placement, but the bank had said in a prospectus for the private placement that it was seeking around $1 billion for a 75 percent stake.When Ariel Re Bermuda was bought out by Goldman Sachs, it employed 61 people, 42 of whom were Bermudian or spouses of Bermudians. None were said to be in danger of losing their jobs at that time. When asked how this latest sale might affect employees here, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs declined to comment.