On Wednesday, PartnerRe Ltd. announced the restructuring of its business support operations into a single integrated worldwide support platform.

The reinsurer said the new organizational structure would mean the eliminations of roughly 140 positions spread across multiple PartnerRe locations worldwide.

The company said the cuts include a small number of redundancies resulting from organizational changes in PartnerRe’s Global Non-Life Operations, which were announced earlier this week.

The purpose is of the restructuring is to provide shared support services on a global basis across the group, PartnerRe said, adding that it will result in enhanced organizational flexibility and greater operational efficiency Company-wide.

The company expects to achieve annual savings of between $60 million and $70 million, pre-tax, with the majority of expense savings achieved by the end of 2014.

As a result, the company expects to record a charge, totaling between $60 million and $70 million, pre-tax, related to the restructuring. This charge will be recorded principally in the company’s second-quarter 2013 results. No charges will be recorded in the company’s first quarter 2013 results.

Source: PartnerRe