Mr. Portwood serves as head of the underwriting and marketing services at ACE USA. He began his career in the underwriting department of Crum & Forster Insurance organisation in 1973. He held a variety of positions with Crum & Forster and with the London Agency and later the Westchester Specialty Group.

In 1996 he was appointed assistant vice president of the underwriting and marketing services unit, a position he held since Westchester's purchase by ACE Ltd. in January this year.

ACE USA is the name of the former Westchester operations. The company is headquartered in Atlanta and has offices in Connecticut, Glendale, Florida, New York and San Francisco.

*** Thomas Casey has been appointed as managing director of Bermuda-based international telecommunications firm Global Crossing Ltd.

Mr. Casey was also appointed as president and a member of the board of directors of Pacific Capital Group, the company which formed Global Crossing along with a number of partners.

Mr. Casey's responsibilities will include seeking new business opportunities for the start up company which went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange recently.

"We believe Mr. Casey will help us to continue to capitalise on Global Crossing's growth and development, as we move forward in building the first truly global fibre optic worldwide telecommunications network,'' Global Crossing chief executive office Jack Scanlon said yesterday.

Pacific Capital is a Los Angeles-based merchant banking firm with interests in providing capital to companies in the telecommunications, media, financial services, real estate and health care sectors.

Mr. Casey will be based in the company's London offices. Prior to joining Pacific Capital and Global Crossing he was the co-head of Merrill Lynch's Global Communications Investment Banking Group. He worked on equity, debt and merger and acquisitions assignments for US, European and Asian companies.

BUSINESS BUC