At the end of this year, Patrick Thiele will retire after a decade as chief executive officer of PartnerRe.As he prepares to leave Bermuda to settle down to a quieter life with his family in his native American Midwest, his legacy to the Island exists in the shape of a company that has grown to be a top-five global reinsurer.Mr Thiele has been a pivotal figure during the dramatic growth the Bermuda market has seen over the past ten years.The numbers speak volumes for his success as a leader. At the end of his first year in charge of PartnerRe, 2001, the company’s total assets were $7.2 billion, total capital was $2.4 billion and shareholders’ equity totalled $1.7 billion. By the end of the third quarter of this year, total assets were $24.3 billion, total capital was $8.4 billion and shareholders’ equity was $7.6 billion.Compound annual growth rate of book value per share between 2002 and 2009 was 14.3 percent, and average operating return on equity was 15.8 percent.PartnerRe’s Bermuda workforce between 2000 and 2010 has risen from 36 to 87, and total global workforce has risen from 610 to 1,400 in the same period. The firm’s charitable contributions during the same time topped $6.5 million.In an interview with The Royal Gazette, Mr Thiele reflected on his time at the helm of PartnerRe and how the firm and the Bermuda market have changed.“It went by in such a flash,” Mr Thiele said. “When you’re in it, you’re so engaged in the moment. The nice thing about the reinsurance business is that there’s usually something going on and you get caught up in it to a remarkable extent. So when you try to look back, a lot of it is a blur.“If there’s one thing I feel proudest about over the ten years, it’s that PartnerRe’s a pretty good company. It seems to be pretty well managed. People enjoy coming to work in the morning and the company of the people they work with. There’s a sense of purpose, a sense of value around what they do. I think there’s a culture of respect and trust within the organisation.“Over ten years it’s very satisfying to lay out financial goals and put together a risk profile and adhere to that and achieve the goals, but at the end of the day it should really be about what kind of company you’re leaving for the next generation.”Key moments included the financial crisis of 2008, the devastating hurricane season of 2005, and the September 11 terrorist attacks, which took place just ten months after he had taken charge of the company.“September 11 was a company-defining event, not only the event itself but also our ability to recover from that,” Mr Thiele said. “The next two or three years was really about bringing the organisation together based on a number of key principles and key strategies that have been very consistent, which I’m quite proud of.”Bermuda has changed dramatically since December 1, 2000, when Mr Thiele was appointed as PartnerRe CEO two weeks after his 50th birthday.“When I started, there were basically four larger companies, Ace, XL, RenaissanceRe and ourselves, and a few smaller ones,” he recalled. “So when we had the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) meeting, then we usually had it in someone’s office, because there were only four or five of us.“We were still trying to convince the world - particularly Europe - that Bermuda was a viable place and a real market.“It was much more collegial. It was basically myself, Jim Stannard, Brian Duperreault and Brian O’Hara. After September 2001, a lot of that began to go away.“Something like $15 billion of capital came into the market, six or eight companies started up, it became a lot more professional. These were high-quality start-ups, with people who knew what they were doing. We now have 23 re/insurers in ABIR and the market feels a little different. There’s also been a profound transformation of the BMA, under Matthew Elderfield and now, Jeremy Cox. I’d say the regulatory system in Bermuda is as good and as professional as anywhere in the world.”These days, there is a better appreciation of the value of the industry to the Island, he said.“There’s certainly an understanding that a healthy insurance and reinsurance industry is good for Bermuda,” Mr Thiele said. “We made it through the financial crisis in good shape and so I think there’s an appreciation of the stability of this industry. It’s not a bad industry to have as one of the cornerstones of your economy.”Look ahead, Mr Thiele believes there a couple of key factors required for Bermuda to continue its success.“It’s absolutely critical that the BMA reaches its goals in terms of the regulatory framework and the supervision they want to put in place. They’re very far along. But if Bermuda is not recognised on the world regulatory stage as having a proper regulatory regime, then most of us can’t stay here. The recent legislation that was passed - the reform of the Insurance Act - was a big step.“Bermuda also needs to stay competitive in terms of cost of doing business. ABIR has said that several times. It’s not a low cost environment and we understand that. We have substantial tax benefits which we certainly prize and were the initial reason for coming to Bermuda.“But there is a point in time where some of the costs of doing business in Bermuda begin to impact where you put jobs. We need to be competitive in Bermuda with Dublin and Zurich, which are not all that expensive and are very competitive with Bermuda. Certainly attention is paid to the costs of locating an employee in Bermuda versus an employee in Dublin or Zurich.“We’re all international companies and there has to be an understanding of that. If you give us the right environment, the companies will take care of attracting and retaining the talent.“Most of the war’s been won in terms of acceptance. I mean, we have about $85 billion of capital - this is a real marketplace. We provide about 40 percent of the world’s catastrophe reinsurance. The CEOs of the companies who make up ABIR are, by and large, great supporters of Bermuda and the Bermuda market, and want to stay.”According to Mr Thiele, the job of CEO involves never switching off. Ten years is probably enough.“If you take on that responsibility, it’s probably not something you should be doing for 20 years - it gets a little tiring,” he said.“It’s pretty much all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever not answered an e-mail. If you’re not meeting financial goals, that’s one thing. But if you know when you make a mistake you’ve got 1,000 employees who will pay the price for it, you need to think about.“You know that bad thing could happen while your phone’s turned off. So I’ve tried not to do that.”As he prepares to hand over to PartnerRe’s chief operating officer Costas Miranthis, Mr Thiele says the challenges he will face include a narrowing of the reinsurance market and increasing regulatory obligations.“The last ten years have been a pretty good time for the reinsurance industry,” he said. “Certainly the level of profitability over the last ten years is unparalleled in any time frame I can think of.” Regular catastrophes had supported pricing and there was a better managed and more diversified industry, he added.“I think Costas starts with a couple of advantages. One is that he’s in an industry that’s more stable and likely at a higher level of consistent profitability than there has been any time in a long time. Two is that he inherits a company that’s doing pretty well. The systems, strategies and culture are in place - we know how to do reinsurance.“So I think his challenges will be forward looking. The industry does change over time. There is a diminishing amount of reinsurance bought for frequency type risks, which means the business we get tends to be the more volatile, severity-type risks.“People are willing to pay for that, but it leads to a more volatile book of business. Reinsurance is getting pushed into a smaller portion of the insurance marketplace and it will be more volatile. The challenge is how to manage our way through that, how do we find new risk classes, how do we diversify our risks? That’s a challenge to a reinsurance-only company.“He will also have to spend more time on regulation, as a result of the evolution of the Bermuda Monetary Authority and also the coming of Solvency II in the European Union.”One of Mr Thiele’s major achievements was the acquisition of Paris Re, announced in July 2009. The integration of the former Swiss company into PartnerRe was predominantly done, he added.“One of the indicators of success would be how much drama leaks out into the marketplace and how many rumours and stories there are,” Mr Thiele said. “But I’ve seen no stories and no comments from brokers about any friction, so I think it’s gone well.”Many Bermuda companies are now trading well below book value, something Mr Thiele describes as “a mystery”, given the market’s respectable long-term performance.“By any measure, we are fundamentally undervalued as an industry,” he said. “Fundamentally, there is no reason we should be trading at these kind of levels. But we are.“Over time if you increase the economic value of your company, your share price does go up. And we’ve given a pretty good return to our shareholders in terms of share price appreciation and dividend over the last ten years. We’ve certainly done a lot better than the S&P 500 and we’ve done it without any significant increase in risk. That’s true of quite a few others in the insurance industry.Low share prices present opportunities for share repurchases, something that PartnerRe and many others have done. The rationale was simple, Mr Thiele said. “If you’re going to sell us dollars for 80 cents, we’ll do that trade all day long.”Mr Thiele has served the Bermuda market in many capacities, including as chairman of ABIR (2010), a member of the board of the Geneva Association (2009-10) and one of the driving forces behind the formation of the Global Reinsurance Forum in 2009.Some leading lights of the industry showed their appreciation for him in a special event in November, staged at Brian O’Hara’s south shore home.“It’s been a great experience for me to run a company in Bermuda,” Mr Thiele said. “The people have been extraordinary within PartnerRe. The industry has become more professional over the last 10 years, but this is still a great place to do business and a great set of people. No regrets. It’s been great.”