Markel CatCo CEO Tony Belisle and Bermuda CEO Alissa Fredricks have both left the company after an internal review found the executives had violated company policies relating to an undisclosed personal relationship.
As previously reported, the investment manager is the subject of governmental inquiries into loss reserves recorded at the company and its subsidiaries in late 2017 and 2018 following heavy industry cat events.
After it was notified of the investigations, parent Markel Corporation, which bought CatCo at the end of 2015, engaged outside counsel to conduct an internal review.
It was during that internal review that Markel discovered violations by Belisle and Fredricks of its own policies relating to an undisclosed personal relationship.
“Prompt action was taken,” said the statement, with the executives leaving the company with immediate effect.
It added that the internal review into loss reserving goes on with no conclusions reached at this time.
Markel CatCo said that management and oversight of the company has been taken on by Jed Rhoads, president and CUO of Markel Global Reinsurance, and his colleague Andrew “Barney” Barnard, senior managing director, head of international property cat and retro reinsurance.
Belisle launched CatCo in late 2010, with the fund growing significantly in recent years and raising an impressive $2.3bn from investors following 2017’s Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria – taking assets under management at that time to $6.2bn.
It raised those post-event funds after initially predicting it could make a 2017 profit despite the storms.
Since then, it has updated its loss estimates and now says its funds lost the equivalent of 57.1 percent of 2017 net asset value.
Shares in CatCo’s Reinsurance Opportunities fund have fallen sharply over the past 12 months as the retro specialist upped its loss picks for the 2017 cat events.