Axis Capital Holdings shares climbed almost six percent yesterday after the Bermuda-based company assured analysts that if further capital raising became necessary this year, it would be ?efficient? for current shareholders.

Axis raised $250 million this autumn by selling preferred stock which Axis Chief Financial Officer Andrew Cook said gave the company a strong capital position as evidenced by its absence from credit watch lists following the spate of third quarter hurricanes.

With ratings agencies becoming stricter, an analyst asked executives at the company?s earnings call whether Axis might pursue further capital raising this year. Mr. Cook replied that if it becomes necessary to access the markets, Axis has the ability to issue more debt or hybrid securities.

?We could access the markets in a very efficient way for our current shareholders,? he said.

The Bermuda-based company reported a $468 million third-quarter loss on Tuesday after estimating a $724 million loss from Hurricane Katrina based on a $60 billion industry event and an $81 million loss for Rita. CEO John Charman said that the upward development from the company?s initial estimate for losses was mostly due to a loss posted by Chevron.

?It was really late breaking and I?m not sure the rest of the industry has really factored it into their third quarter numbers and it goes to the scale of the loss Chevron had put into the market which is $1.4 billion of insured losses over the two hurricanes ? Katrina and Rita. It was a material event and we wanted to get it into our numbers right away and we reserved the full policy limit,? he said.

Mr. Charman said that Axis would preserve capital in a highly volatile business through the construction of a global group of business which would be strongly diversified by both geographic location and breadth of product line cover.

He said the company would have ?strong hands on risk management including real daily peer review of all proposed underwriting activity? and coordinated opportunistic purchases of reinsurance protection.

Axis would strictly avoid business lines where the company was unable to determine an appropriate return on capital for the risk in a reasonable period of time, he said.

Axis shares closed $1.51, or 5.96 percent higher at $28.56 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange.