ACE Limited yesterday announced that vice-chairman Dominic Frederico would be stepping down from his position with the company to take up the reins of the company's financial guaranty business which is being spun off into a separate company, AGC Holdings.

The announcement that Mr. Frederico will be moving to AGC Holdings was made in tandem with the company filing a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering of its financial guaranty business.

This is the second career change for Mr. Frederico this year. Up until May he had held the post of chief operating officer for ACE Limited but a management shift put Evan Greenberg in that position while Mr. Frederico was named vice-chairman. Now Mr. Frederico, who has been with ACE since joining the company from AIG in 1995, will no longer hold any position at ACE Limited, but will remain on the company's board of directors.

AGC Holdings is a Bermuda-based holding company that will, through the IPO, acquire the stock of ACE's subsidiaries ? ACE Guaranty Corp. and ACE Capital Re International Ltd. ? currently holding its financial guaranty business.

The move for ACE to spin off its financial guaranty business was announced earlier this month, but the filing moves the process one step further to an eventual listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

The AGC Holding filing made with the SEC yesterday said the company would provide credit enhancement products to the municipal finance, structured finance and mortgage markets. AGC also indicated that it would conduct its business through three operating segments; financial guaranty direct, financial guaranty reinsurance and mortgage guaranty.

ACE has said it plans to retain a stake in the company, but will sell off between 65 and 75 percent of the business in the IPO slated to occur in the first half of next year. Mr. Frederico will oversee the AGC Holdings public offering and thereafter, the company's various subsidiaries will report to him as president and CEO of AGC Holdings.

Although ACE has given no guidance on how much the IPO proceeds could be, analysts told Bloomberg earlier in the month that up to $1 billion could be raised in the share offering.

Hugh Warns, an analyst at J.P. Morgan predicted the sale could generate about $1 billion in capital while Michael Paisan, an analyst at Legg Mason Wood Walker, put proceeds between $700 million and $900 million.The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been reported.

ACE CEO Brian Duperreault said in a Press statement issued earlier in the month that the proceeds ACE received from the offering would go towards "incremental growth in our remaining operations and to further strengthen our already solid balance sheet."

The joint book-running managers on the offering are Banc of America Securities LLC and Goldman, Sachs & Co. Citigroup will act as co-lead manager.

Separately ACE financial guaranty subsidiary ACE Guaranty Corp. said it had posted Michael Schozer to the position of president. ACE Guaranty Corp. will come under AGC Holdings, and Mr. Schozer will report to Mr. Frederico. ACE Financial Services, which is currently the parent company of ACE Guaranty Corp. also announced that its CEO Jerry Jurschak was retiring.