new business, The Royal Gazette has learned.

Mr. Jim Parkinson, president and chief executive officer at Stockholm Re (Bermuda), resigned on Monday.

Senior underwriters at Stockholm Re (Bermuda) (SRB) Mr. Peter Woolf, a senior vice president, and Mr. Paul Murray, senior vice president, also left their posts at the company on Monday.

Ms Caroline Parsons, chief financial officer at SRB, will be retained by the company.

About half the current staff, said to total 50, will be involved in the run-off, although the number of redundancies is yet unclear.

One estimate of staff loss is set at 25-30 people.

Mr. Hakan Danielsson, and Mr. Sten Duner, directors of the company's Swedish parent, Lansforsakringsbolangens (LF-AB), a farmers' mutual insurer, flew to the Island on Friday, and completed talks with the local management team on Monday.

The directors decided there was no option but to appoint exempted investment holdings company Eastney Investments to manage the company's run-off operations.

Eastney Investments will act through SRB's insurance management subsidiary Stockholm Management.

The announcement put an end to a flurry of rumours last week about the future of the company. A number of companies are believed to have been vying for the businesses of managing the run-off.

Mr. John Williams, president of Eastney Investments, has been appointed to the board of SRB, and takes the post of president and CEO.

He said some SRB staff would "go to different things''. Some may be absorbed into the company's two active subsidiary companies, Stockholm Management, a captive management company, and broking company HJF International.

HJF, said to be a successful operation, is understood to have bought itself out on Monday, but this could not be confirmed.

At the time The Royal Gazette met with Mr. Williams yesterday, he had been at the Stockholm Re (Bermuda) offices for just eight hours.

He said LF-AB, parent of the property, marine and aviation reinsurer, decided over a year ago that it would make a strategic withdrawal from reinsurance.

"At that time, the parent felt that SRB was the ideal candidate for a restructuring, such as a capital injection from a third party, to put it into a size bracket that would enable it to compete on the world market.

"That has not happened.'' SRB was the last of the operating subsidiaries within the reinsurance field, said Mr. Williams. LF-AB has sold its reinsurance operations in the US, closed its Mexico operation and put its London and Stockholm reinsurers in run-off.

According to the most recent figures in the 1992 annual report, Stockholm Re had $20.5 million in capital and surplus.

"The figures, in common with other reinsurance companies in the last few years, have not been brilliant. As the company wrote excess of loss business, it suffered as a result of all the major losses that have happened in the last few years,'' said Mr. Williams.

"With such a small size, they were not a viable entity. Unfortunately, it has not been able to raise new capital, and therefore those restructuring options are not available any more. The decision was made that they would put the company into run-off, and not accept any more business.

He could not comment on why additional capital could not be raised.

Mr. Williams is a director of The Powerscourt Group, which will have no role in the run-off proceedings, and runs investment holding company Visor Investments. He is an owner of reinsurance company Paumanock Insurance Company, now in run-off.

Mr. Parkinson said: "I regret the decision as substantial profits were made in the last three pure underwriting years.

"The ultimate parent has been reducing its activity in reinsurance over the past two years. It wished to return to its core activity, agriculture-related business, due to insufficient capital at the last renewal season.

"As SRB lost about two-thirds of its portfolio, there seemed little point in continuing with the company as the parent had no wish to increase capital, which left the alternative of run-off.

"When that decision was made I resigned.'' Mr. John Williams Mr. James Parkinson.