Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. announced today that it commenced an underwritten public offering to sell 9 million shares of Odyssey Re Holdings Corp. (NYSE: ORH) common stock.

Fairfax will grant the underwriters an option to purchase up to 1.35 million additional common shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.

The proposed offering will be jointly led by Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking and Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC.

Fairfax, which will continue to own a majority of the shares of Odyssey Re after the proposed offering, intends to use the proceeds it receives from the proposed offering for general corporate purposes, which may include opportunistically effecting open market or privately negotiated repurchases of its outstanding debt or shares. Odyssey Re will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares.