It is too early to say what impact Validus Holdings Ltd.'s takeover of fellow Bermuda reinsurer IPC Holdings Ltd. will have on jobs, according to the man who will lead the combined company.

Ed Noonan, chairman and chief executive officer of Validus, said the future of IPC's 31 staff would become clearer as work on the merging of the two companies progressed.

Validus announced last Thursday that IPC's board of directors had agreed to sell, after a four-month bidding war. The deal is subject to the approval of shareholders of both companies.

Mr. Noonan told The Royal Gazette yesterday that the deal was expected to close within a time frame of six to eight weeks. The impact of jobs was not yet clear, he added.

"Through this process, we did not get the chance to spend much time with the management of IPC," Mr. Noonan said.

"It is clear that IPC is a small operation that has outsourced some key functions.

"We have frozen any outside hiring and any positions that do become available, we'd like them to go to IPC employees.

"As we go through the transaction, things will become clearer."

IPC operates out of the American International Building, in Richmond Road, Pembroke.

Validus made a hostile takeover for bid at the end of March, which helped to derail a previously agreed amalgamation deal between IPC and Max Capital Group Ltd.

Another Bermuda company, Flagstone Reinsurance Holdings Ltd., then tabled its own bid for IPC, as the IPC board entertained a string of suitors.

Validus was eventually successful after it increased the cash component of its $1.67 billion offer to $7.50 for each IPC share, plus 0.9727 Validus shares.

One analyst has suggested that the merger will not give IPC the kind of diversification it was seeking when it started looking for a merger partner.

Mr. Noonan said the combined company would be more diversified.

"IPC's business is 90 percent catastrophe business — the combined company will have 40 percent catastrophe business," he said.

Should a major hurricane spark large claims in the coming weeks, it would not affect the deal, Mr. Noonan said.

Completing the takeover during the wind season was "not particularly troubling to us, because both companies are very conservative underwriters in an outstanding pricing environment", the CEO added.

Validus, whose Bermuda offices are in the Bermuda Commercial Bank Building on Par-la-Ville Road, Hamilton, was founded soon after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in response to soaring reinsurance rates.

The company was formed by Aquiline Capital, a private equity firm formed by Jeffrey Greenberg, former chief executive officer of insurance broker Marsh & McLennan.