OREANDA-NEWS. A.M. Best has assigned a financial strength rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and an issuer credit rating (ICR) of “a-” to Harrington Re Ltd. (Harrington). A.M. Best also has assigned an ICR of “bbb-” to Harrington Reinsurance Holdings Limited. Both companies are domiciled in Bermuda. The outlook assigned to each rating is stable.

Harrington is sponsored by AXIS Capital Holdings Limited (AXIS) and Blackstone Group L.P. (Blackstone). The lead operating company of AXIS, AXIS Specialty Limited (Bermuda), has an FSR of A+ (Superior) from A.M. Best. Blackstone was founded in 1985, has approximately $344 billion of assets under management as of March 31, 2016, and is a leading investment manager across a wide array of alternative assets strategies. Harrington will seek to leverage the strengths of AXIS’ underwriting platform and will be invested across a multi-asset alternative strategy managed by Blackstone.