Glacier Re Announces Two Promotions, Two More Departures

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November 24, 2009 Tuesday 04:19 PM EST

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Glacier Re Announces Two Promotions, Two More Departures

Meg Green

PFAFFIKON, Switzerland

Less than a month after Glacier Group's Chief Executive Officer Robbie Klaus resigned from the company, the Swiss insurer and reinsurer said it had completed a strategic review, promoted two executives, and announced the departure of two more executives.

Andreas Zdrenyk, who joined Glacier in December 2008 as head of group risk management, takes on the newly created role of chief risk officer. Morten Pahle, who joined the group as senior underwriter in Glacier Insurance's London office in April 2008, was named U.K. Branch Manager of Glacier Insurance. He succeeds Steven Price, who has resigned from the group.

Dirk Turley, chief strategic officer, has also stepped down from his post, the company said in a statement.

Turley and Klaus had been with the company since it was founded in late 2004. Klaus will remain at the company as a consultant.

The company did not comment beyond the press release on Nov. 24.

Newly appointed Glacier Group CEO Todd Hart, who was named to fill the post left vacant when Klaus resigned in October, said as part of its strategic review, Glacier will continue to concentrate on specialty insurance and reinsurance, direct and facultative property insurance in European and selected geographies and property treaty for targeted small, medium and regional customers.

"We will continue to be a strong partner to all of our customers, focusing on quality business and relationships over top-line growth," Hart said in a statement. Before becoming CEO, Hart had led the insurance group at HBK Capital Management, one of the founding shareholders of Glacier, and also served as a nonexecutive director on Glacier's board.

Glenn Campbell, chief financial officer, said the Glacier Group maintains a strong and liquid balance sheet with an excellent level of risk-adjusted capitalization. "Our investment portfolio is secure and continues to perform well in the current market, we expect our portfolio to be near or surpass the $1 billion mark by year end," Campbell said in a statement.

In his new role, Zdrenyk assumes responsibility for all group risk management functions and becomes a member of Glacier's senior leadership team. He has more than 25 years of experience in European and U.S. reinsurance, previously worked as the chief operating officer of Scor Holdings (Switzerland) AG and the Scor Global Property & Casualty Division. He has also held senior roles at Converium, Zurich Re and Winterthur.

Pahle has specialized in the aerospace arena, and has more than 13 years of industry experience. Before joining Glacier, he was group risk and insurance manager at EADS Astrium.

At the same time Glacier announced Klaus' departure, it also reported a net technical result for the quarter of $30.7 million, bringing it to a total of $64 million for year to date, which it said reflected a "strong underwriting performance" (BestWire, Oct. 30, 2009).

In September this year Glacier Group reported a 4% increase in pretax net income to $26 million for the first half of 2009 from the $25 million it made in the same period of 2008 (BestWeek, Sept. 7, 2009).

Units of Glacier Group currently have Best's Financial Strength Ratings of A- (Excellent).

(By Meg Green, senior associate editor, BestWeek: [email protected])

November 25, 2009