Mapfre Middlesea plc - Extraordinary General Meeting

On 3 November Middlesea Insurance plc announced that it will be holding an Extraordinary General Meeting on Friday 20 November 2009. During this extraordinary meeting, shareholders will be asked to approve a number of changes to the memorandum and articles of the Company. Moreover shareholders will also be asked to approve a rights issue, details of which will be announced in due course.

In the announcement, the Directors explained that the substantial losses reported by its Italian subsidiary Progress Assicurazioni during 2008 and 2009 have placed an unprecedented strain on the capital resources of the Middlesea Group. As such an increase in the authorized and issued share capital of Middlesea Insurance plc is necessary to re-establish the capital position of the Group and satisfy regulatory obligations.

Shareholders will be asked to authorize the Board of Directors to issue up to a maximum of 67,000,000 ordinary shares of a nominal value of €0.60 each, valid for a period of three months. The proposed date of the opening of applications is the 25 November 2009 whilst the pricing and cut-off date of this rights issue will be communicated through a Company announcement after finalization of discussions with the underwriter/s. Subsequently a prospectus for the rights issue will be published. The Company has already lodged an application for the admission of the new ordinary shares to be listed during the last week of December 2009. The new ordinary shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares.