Ace Ltd. is seeing about a 4 percent drop in reinsurance pricing overall, with new business pricing 8 to 10 percent lower than renewal pricing, the company's chief executive officer Evan Greenberg said yesterday.

But even so, "overall, opportunities for growth are offsetting a substantial portion of the competitive headwinds", Mr. Greenberg said during the company's first-quarter earnings conference call. He said that in some areas, the company is seeing "severe and, I might say, naive competition".

Mr. Greenberg said that the company's Vietnam office is "going gangbusters", although from a small start. He also said China, Southeast Asia, Korea, and Latin America, including Mexico, were among the areas where the company sees opportunities for growth.

On Tuesday night, Ace reported a 43 percent jump in first-quarter net income to a record $701 million - despite reinsurance premiums that dropped 21 percent in the quarter.

Ace's shares shot up by 4.4 percent in trading yesterday.