Shares of Bermudian-based insurer Athene Holding Ltd this morning began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in an initial public offering that raised around $1.1 billion.

Existing shareholders of Athene were looking to sell 27 million shares for a price set last night at $40 per share, at the midpoint of the previously announced $38 to $42 target price range.

Athene sells fixed annuity products as well as annuity reinsurance. The company was founded in 2009 by James Belardi, the chief executive officer, formerly president of SunAmerica Life Insurance Company.

The firm is based in offices in Chesney House on Pitts Bay Road.

Athene, trading under the ticker symbol “ATH”, got off to a strong start and the shares closed at $44.05 in New York — 10.1 per cent over the IPO price — on the trading of more than 14.1 million shares.

The offering is the third largest IPO in the US this year, according to Bloomberg News.

In the space of less than a decade, Athene has expanded into the seventh-largest provider of annuities in the US, through acquisitions as well as organic growth.

It has a $72 billion investment portfolio, about a fifth of which is managed by Apollo Global Management LLC, a major alternative investment manager headed by Leon Black.

Athene generated $3.8 billion in sales during the first nine months of the year and the offering’s prospectus shows that the company earned operating income net of tax of $476 million during the January through September period.

Athene will not receive proceeds from the sale, the filing shows. Selling shareholders include Apollo, a unit of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and Teacher Retirement System of Texas.

The offering follows another Bermuda IPO in September, when Butterfield Bank shares debuted on the NYSE, Michael Dunkley, the Premier, accompanied the bank’s executives in ringing the opening bell and the Gombeys caused a stir by invaded the trading floor.

Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Citigroup and Wells Fargo Securities are acting as joint bookrunners of the offering.