to underwrite any business from Bermuda for at least a year, the company's founders said yesterday.

Last week, it was announced that New Cap Re, a Bermuda-incorporated holding company for Australia and Bermuda subsidiaries, had completed a $150 million equity offering. The Australian subsidiary is the group's principal operating company.

New Cap Re's Bermuda subsidiary will initially accept a quota share of business written by its Australia-based sister company, a spokesman said.

And there is a "view to have underwriting done out of Bermuda'' in future, said Skandia International Risk Management senior vice president Robert Eastham, who is coordinating the new reinsurer's account.

It is anticipated that underwriting from Bermuda is "certainly at least 12 months away,'' New Cap Re chairman Udayan Daniel Ghose, also CEO of Eldon Capital, said. Eldon Capital, a private investment firm specialising in insurance and financial institutions, is the reinsurer's lead US investor.

Mr. Ghose said that New Cap Re will not be competing with Bermuda's property catastrophe reinsurers.

New Cap Re will write some catastrophe business but will primarily specialise in casualty and marine reinsurance with a small client base, he added.

The quota share arrangement between the two companies will give the Bermuda subsidiary a 65 percent share. That percentage will also reflect the capitalisation of the Bermuda company, he said.

Of the $150 million equity offering, $140 million will go to capitalise the two subsidiaries. By year end, combined insurance operations capital should reach $200 million.

Mr. Ghose said New Cap Re (Bermuda) will be a Class 3 company under Government's multi-class licensing system, which was instituted on January 1.

New Cap Re was developed by Volker de Chelard, former underwriter of GIO Re in Australia, along with Paul Williams, a Chicago-based reinsurance intermediary, and Jonathan Beach, a Toronto-based insurance entrepreneur.