Mediaboss Marketing

GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands, May 14, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (Nasdaq:GLRE - News), a specialist property and casualty reinsurer, today announced the appointment of John H. Drake, Jr. as Vice President, Business Development. He will be responsible for maintaining productive client and broker relationships while also identifying attractive new business opportunities.

"We are delighted to welcome John to our team as he has the right experience and a deep understanding of our industry from his years in underwriting," said Brendan Barry, Chief Underwriting Officer at Greenlight Re. "With his established relationships and appreciation for the role of business development in a customer-centric reinsurance company, John will help Greenlight Re continue to partner successfully with our clients and the broker community." He will be based at the Company's headquarters in the Cayman Islands.

Mr. Drake brings more than 20 years of insurance industry experience to Greenlight Re, and a background that includes underwriting, sales and marketing. He joins the Company from Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, where he was most recently Vice President, Sales Force Effectiveness Team, and previously served as Vice President, Marketing for Swiss Re Underwriters Agency, Inc. During his time with Swiss Re, Mr. Drake developed and maintained broad property & casualty reinsurance broker relationships, and generated new business opportunities across all business lines. Mr. Drake previously held underwriting management positions at OneBeacon Professional Partners, HartRe Company, and Chubb Specialty Insurance.

Mr. Drake is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Associate of Reinsurance (ARe). He also holds a Bachelors Degree from Union College, and is an MBA candidate at Babson College's F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. We intend these forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements in the U.S. Federal securities laws. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements made on behalf of the Company. These risks and uncertainties include the impact of general economic conditions and conditions affecting the insurance and reinsurance industry, the adequacy of our reserves, our ability to assess underwriting risk, trends in rates for property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, competition, investment market fluctuations, trends in insured and paid losses, catastrophes, regulatory and legal uncertainties and other factors described in our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd.

Greenlight Re (www.greenlightre.ky) is a specialist property and casualty reinsurance company based in the Cayman Islands and Ireland. The Company provides a variety of custom-tailored reinsurance solutions to the insurance, risk retention group, captive and financial marketplaces. Established in 2004, Greenlight Re selectively offers customized reinsurance solutions in markets where capacity and alternatives are limited. With a focus on deriving superior returns from both sides of the balance sheet, Greenlight Re's assets are managed according to a value-oriented equity-focused strategy that complements the Company's business goal of long-term growth in book value per share.

The Greenlight Capital Re logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=5571

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Greenlight Capital Re Appoints Drake as Vice President, Business Development

15 May 2012

Cayman Finance has welcomed the results of an independent study which places the Cayman Islands among only two offshore territories which have consistently implemented internationally-accepted standards on identity verification during due diligence processes.

Richard Coles Chairman of Cayman Finance, the promotional agency for the islands' financial services industry, noted that the study, carried out by Professor Jason Sharman of Griffith University in Australia, confirms what Cayman Islands officials and industry have been saying all along: that the Cayman Islands is one of the most diligent jurisdictions in the world when it comes to the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism.

It is certainly refreshing to see the positive results of an independent study after the investment that the Cayman Islands has made - from both an industry as well as government perspective - in enhancing its regulatory framework over the past 15 years, Coles said.

Coles lamented the fact, however, that awareness of the high standards upheld in the Cayman Islands is unfortunately still lacking across the wider international community which seems to be dominated more by stories which perpetuate the old image of offshore being less regulated.

The study showed that the corporate service providers in the Cayman Islands were top of the table of over 183 countries because they required a full suite of identification documentation. The Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands were the only two jurisdictions that had a perfect compliance record, according to the results of the study.

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Cayman Regulatory Framework Endorsed

15 May 2012

The Cayman Islands government has sought to bolster business relations with Brazilian investors by taking part in the recent Brazil Investment Summit.

The government said the event presented the opportunity to hold meetings with private equity and institutional investors and provide valuable insight into how the Cayman Islands is perceived internationally, and what policy makers could do to maximize the territory's potential to act as a conduit to investment flows to Brazil.

During the visit, meetings were held with members of Brazil's private sector, key industry associations, including the Brazilian Alternative Investment Managers Association, and representatives from the Portuguese and American Chambers of Commerce.

A team from the government hosted a booth at the summit to offer information on the financial services products being offered from the islands, including in the maritime and aviation spheres.

Welcoming the success of the event, Cayman Premier and Minister for Finance, Tourism and Development, McKeeva Bush, stated: The government has given the Ministry of Finance a mandate to focus energies on emerging economies such as Brazil. Our private sector has long established strong links with Brazil. It is important that we do our part to ensure that the Cayman Islands service providers remain the service providers of choice for the facilitation of Brazilian investment flows.

The Cayman Islands is one of the top five jurisdictions in the world for investment in and out of Brazil, according to 2010 data from the International Monetary Fund. Dr Dax Basdeo of the Cayman Islands Ministry of Finance said that inward portfolio and direct investment flows amount to USD27bn annually, while outward flows amount to nearly USD40bn.

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Cayman Islands Target Brazilian Investors

Ontarians more stressed than other regions about the thought of retiring with debt Nearly six in ten Ontario homeowners indicate they would continue to work if they reached their planned retirement age and still had debt Manulife Bank surveyed 2,003 Canadians Audio clip and infographic attached

TSX/NYSE/PSE: MFCSEHK:945

Retiring from Debt in Ontario (CNW Group/Manulife Financial Corporation)

WATERLOO, ON, May 14, 2012 /CNW/ - Ninety per cent of Ontario homeowners indicate that "being debt-free" is very important to their definition of a successful retirement, according to a recent debt and retirement survey conducted by Manulife Bank of Canada . This is second only to "good health" (95%), and slightly higher than "sufficient retirement income to maintain my current lifestyle" (84%).

Ontarians are also more concerned about the thought of reaching their planned retirement age with debt still outstanding than are other Canadians. Fifty-seven per cent of Ontarians indicated that they would find this scenario extremely stressful, compared to 46 per cent of homeowners from the rest of Canada .

Forty-three per cent of Ontario homeowners who are neither debt free nor retired indicate that they will place a greater emphasis on debt repayment over retirement savings over the next 12 months. Only eight per cent stated the reverse, further reinforcing the high priority Ontario homeowners place on debt-freedom for their retirement.

This is the first time that Manulife Bank focused on surveying Canadians about debt in the context of retirement planning. Manulife Bank has increased the sample size to allow for regional-specific data demonstrating similarities and differences in how Canadians view debt across the country.

"Most people think about savings as the key financial consideration for retirement," stated Mike Gentile , a Chartered Financial Consultant & President of Personalized Investment Planning Inc. in Kitchener, Ontario. "But debt-freedom is a critical consideration for Ontarians, and they find the idea of retiring with debt extremely stressful. An experienced Financial Advisor employs tools such as Cash Flow Analysis and Financial Planning Concepts to assist clients in reducing their debts while giving them an opportunity to increase their tax advantaged savings."

Across Canada , debt-freedom expectations change as people get older

Manulife Bank's debt and retirement survey found that three in four Canadian homeowners consider debt-freedom to be among their top financial goals - a finding that is relatively consistent with Manulife Bank's past consumer debt studies. However, their expectation about when they will actually achieve debt-freedom appears to be largely dependent upon their age, a finding that is consistent across the country.

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For Ontarians, a Successful Retirement Requires a Debt Freedom Plan

A sign on a large beachfront home had a couple of our readers irate, so perturbed they snapped a picture and emailed it to us.

The sign read, Show us your um, bare chest.

I suspect it wasnt intended for me or any other man and has long been one of the most popular Bike Week catch phrases.

Kindly distribute this to our town leaders, the email read. Not only do we residents and property owner have to endure the noise and loose [sic] our sleep but now the children are effected [sic]. I would like to know how this promotes a family beach. Looks like greed of sales tax is more important than our values.

The use of the word values is instructive, because I sympathize with the sentiment.

I have two small kids who are as inquisitive as they come.

And they notice everything everything.

A sign like that is unlikely to miss their notice. What type of values am I trying to instill? And do signs such as this make that more difficult?

Im raising them along the Grand Strand, one of the nations most popular resort areas.

Though this is our place of residence for 365 days of the year, for about 14 million tourists, it is the devils playground a few days or weeks every summer season.

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Issac J. Bailey | Bike rallies demonstrate our freedom to get on each other’s nerves