Kenneth LeStrange, chairman and chief executive of Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd., said on Friday that he was not disappointed with the pricing of the company's initial public offering.

The IPO priced at $23 a share on Thursday, a day after it was originally due to be priced. It was expected to price at about $25 to $27 a share.

The insurer raised $221 million by offering 9.6 million shares, down from proceeds of up to $260 million under the high end of the old pricing range.

Endurance shares closed on Friday unchanged at $23, on the New York Stock Exchange.

"We found a very cynical audience out there," Mr. LeStrange told Dow Jones Newswires. "I don't think it had anything to do with Endurance at all, but people have lost a lot of money."

Given the "choppy market," Mr. LeStrange said he was "very happy" with the $23 offering price.

Mr. LeStrange told Dow Jones that he did not believe that the emergence of companies like his stood to soften some of the high prices in the property and casualty insurance market.

It has been these high rates that have caused investors to capitalise new insurers in the first place, though some critics have said the emergence of all this new capacity will almost certainly bring insurance rates down.

While "that would be the instinctive conclusion people might have", the new class of Bermuda insurers have only created a total of $15 billion to $16 billion in business, while the market has lost $140 billion to $170 billion in capacity over the past few years.

"There is still a real supply, demand imbalance," LeStrange said.

As for the IPO market itself, LeStrange said the company was watching market conditions very closely.

Initial public offerings have been few and far between this year, with none taking place in January.

And investors are also wary about the insurance market after a number of companies released poor earnings or have reduced their dividend, CBS MarketWatch reported.

"One message underneath Endurance's IPO could be an illustration of how well the company handles risk, since it's managing to debut its stock in a particularly dangerous time for the stock market," CBS MarketWatch said. As a new company, Endurance Specialty faces less of the asbestos and other liability issues that have challenged established firms.

"Many global property and casualty insurers and reinsurers are currently experiencing significantly reduced capital resulting from several years of excessively competitive pricing, expanding coverage terms, significant increases in losses from asbestos liability, under-reserving, poor investment performance and losses from the World Trade Center tragedy," the company said in its IPO filing.

The company began operations on December 17, 2001, after completing a $1.2 billion private placement deal with investors including Aon and Credit Suisse First Boston.