New Bermuda-based class three reinsurer D.E. Shaw Re has hired Darren Redhead as its chief underwriting officer.

Mr. Redhead has joined the company from Lloyd's of London syndicate Talbot Underwriting, which was last week acquired by Bermuda-based Validus Re.

D.E. Shaw Re was incorporated last December and is focused primarily on the property catastrophe market.

At Talbot, Mr. Redhead was syndicate deputy underwriter and was responsible for all reinsurance writing, reinsurance purchasing, property direct underwriting, and structuring and raising syndicate capital.

D.E. Shaw Re was set up by the D. E. Shaw Group, a global investment and technology group with $29 billion of assets under management.

The organisation encompasses a number of entities with more than 1,100 employees and offices in New York, London, Silicon Valley, Houston, Kansas City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Hyderabad and Gurgaon, India.

The Group's activities range from the deployment of investment strategies, based on either mathematical models or human expertise, to the acquisition of existing companies and the financing or development of new ones.