It is "hold 'em steady" for XL Capital, according to the company's chief executive officer, Brian O'Hara, who downplayed the record results the company posted this week for the first quarter of 2004.

Speaking to analysts yesterday at the company's scheduled conference call, Mr. O'Hara did not get the grilling he did last quarter when reserve issues dogged the company.

During 2003, the company found a $878 million shortfall in reserves due to legacy issues related to their US business and the company's share price took a hit while the internal investigation looked at the matter.

Mr. O'Hara yesterday said that there were no more reserve issues to report, either in a positive or negative way.

Instead of a grilling, he faced a few technical questions and downplayed the results which saw the company's profits leap by 85 percent to $462.2 million from $210 million for the year ago period.

When asked by one analyst, Goldman Sachs' Thomas Cholnoky about calling the record results "satisfactory", Mr. O'Hara said that he was not going to do a "Hail Mary" about the results, but instead would demonstrate that the company's problems were behind them, quarter by quarter.

XL's chief financial officer and executive vice president Jerry de St. Paer was even cautious about the good returns from investment income, which was up 19 percent to $228 million.

"We have been growing that segment over the last few years," he told analysts. "And there has been improvements in the markets."

He said that fund managers were again on incentive fees, which boosted the amount coming in, but said that XL recognised the volatility in the markets.

"But it adds more arrows to our quiver,' he said, but would not put up projections for the rest of the year from investment income from nine or 10 percent.

"We expect a yield of nine or 10 percent, but it will not necessarily be this throughout the year," said Mr. St. Paer. "Sometimes it is in the ten or 12 percent range. Overall funds were very strong at the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004."

He said generally there was a very positive market and the company's investments, which he stressed were highly diversified, had performed very strongly in the first quarter of 2004.

"We have benefited from excellent performance but we are reluctant to move the projection up," he said.

Mr. O'Hara told analysts in response to questions that shuffles in senior management were behind them and the company was now looking at a stable situation in that regard.

At the end of the call, Mr. O'Hara, when pushed about whether 2004 was shaping up better than 2003, he said yes, but was still cautious.

"It depends on events, their frequency and severity," he said. "It has the potential to, but we have to see through time."

Overall he said that they had a record quarter and that the market was overall adequately priced and should produce good returns during the year.

"Our global platform in insurance and reinsurance is well positioned," said Mr. O'Hara.