Axis CEO Plans to Pass Baton When Contract Ends in 2013

John Charman, chief executive of Bermuda insurance group Axis Capital Holdings Ltd expects to pass on the CEO position to a successor when his contract ends in just over five years.

Charman, in an interview, decided this year to renew his contract with Axis through 2013, but he did not expect to renew it next time around.

“I don’t believe in being in one place for too long. We have an excellent management group who are young but experienced and it will be their time,” he told Reuters.

Charman, 55, said Axis had a succession plan in place, but declined to name names.

“It is between the board and senior management,” he said.

Charman said about two years ago that he planned to quit the insurer at the end of this year, citing a messy and expensive divorce that was at that time still dragging on and proving a drain on the fortune he made over three decades in the Lloyd’s of London insurance market and at Axis, a company he formed in Bermuda in 2001.

Charman moved to this wealthy mid-Atlantic British colony in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C., which triggered billions of dollars in insured losses, creating a need for new entrants such as Axis to boost insurance capacity.

Last September, Charman lost an appeal against his ex-wife’s record-breaking 48 million pound, or nearly $100 million, settlement. He had offered her 20 million. It was the highest sum ever awarded by a British divorce court.

“I never wanted to step down, but because of my personal situation I took that course of action (to step down this year),” Charman told Reuters. “Fortunately after four and a half years of litigation and $14 million worth of legal fees personally, I was able to resolve that situation.”

(Editing by Andre Grenon)