What’s New: In Brief (November 24, 2006)

Fairfax Financial Holdings (Fairfax) has announced an underwritten public offering to sell 9 million common shares of Odyssey Re Holdings Corp.
Fairfax will grant the underwriters an option to purchase up to 1.4-million additional shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.
Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking and Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC will lead the proposed offering.
Fairfax intends to use the proceeds it receives for general corporate purposes, which may include open-market or privately-negotiated repurchases of its outstanding debt or shares.
After the proposed offering, Fairfax will continue to own a majority of the OdysseyRe shares. OdysseyRe will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares.

An agreement between labour representatives and Allianz Deutschland AG has been struck in which Allianz “agrees not to make any compulsory redundancies until the end of 2009.”
Allianz said its goal is to shed 2,479 full-time jobs by the end of 2007, 2,170 by the end of 2008, in addition to the 1,040 full-time positions already eliminated at the end of October 2006. The company said it intends to achieve its goal “through jointly agreed measures” with the union.
Allianz management will continue to meet with the company’s union representatives throughout 2009, the company said in a press release. The aim is to “conduct further talks on measures safeguarding employment (e.g. protection against dismissal) for the period until 2012.”