Validus Holdings Ltd. became Bermuda's third post-Katrina start-up reinsurer to file to offer shares to the public.

Validus, which 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, plans to raise $200 million in its initial public offering (IPO).

The company announced yesterday that it filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. will serve as joint book-running managers of the offering.

Last week CastlePoint Holdings, sponsored by Tower Group Inc., a New York-based specialty property and casualty insurance company, filed for its IPO on the Nasdaq. It hopes to raise $50 million.

And last October, 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's chairman is West End Capital management chief Mark Byrne, and the company writes property, property catastrophe and specialty and casualty reinsurance.

The Validus announcement came on the same day that another post-Katrina start-up reinsurer based in the Cayman Islands, Greenlight Capital Re Ltd., said it planned to raise up to $175 million in an IPO.

Greenlight is backed by $4-billion hedge fund Greenlight Capital.