A Bermuda-based exempt company has boosted its stake in insurance company BF&M in a massive share transfer worth around $17 million.Lawrie (Bermuda) Ltd, owned by UK investment firm Camellia Plc, building on existing holdings in BF&M, now holds more than 861,000 shares in the firm — nearly 35 percent of the company.Lawrie chairman Greg Haycock said: “We have been a long-term investor with BF&M. We’ve been investing in them since the mid-1980s and have built up a significant stock in the company.“We are a big supporter of BF&M because we think it’s very well run and we continue to see it as a very strong company in Bermuda.”Camellia Plc on Wednesday told the London Stock Exchange that Lawrie had bought more than 713,000 BF&M shares at $19.80 a share from the Bermuda Commercial Bank (BCB) and a further block of more than 148,000 shares at the same price from property and investment firm West Hamilton Holdings.BF&M has an exemption to the 60/40 rule, which was designed to ensure majority Bermudian ownership of local companies.The deal was partly financed by the sale of Lawrie’s entire portfolio of 935,000 shares in communications firm KeyTech, worth $6.15 a share, to BCB, raising a total of almost $6 million.A further deal, where Lawrie’s entire holding in West Hamilton Holdings, also to BCB, raised around $2.4 million at $6 a share.The Camellia statement to the London Stock Exchange said the Lawrie deals were “in order to rationalise its Bermuda investments.”Mr Haycock said: “It’s a very large volume of shares, which is very unusual for the local stock market. You rarely have an opportunity to buy large quantities of shares here. Conversely, it’s also difficult to sell a large block.”A spokeswoman for BCB yesterday declined to comment on the shares deals.