W. Marston Becker — known as Marty — was appointed chairman and chief executive officer of Max Re at the end of October, when founder Bob Cooney resigned following some confusion over the accounting for some of the company’s contracts. Mr. Becker took the helm of a company renowned for its ability to change its approach to fit market conditions.

Mr. Becker had been a member of Max’s board since 2004 and has been visiting Bermuda for more than 25 years, so he is by no means an unknown quantity locally. It was not until this week, however, that he spoke to the Press for the first time about Max’s immediate past, present and future.

A career insurance executive, Mr. Becker has worked in insurance, reinsurance and broking, as an employee and a consultant. He also has deep experience in private equity investing.

The Royal Gazette: How did you come to transition from the board to your new responsibilities?

Marston Becke>: The timing of Bob Cooney’s decision to step down at Max was not pre-planned. Certainly, he had made it known that at some point in time he was going to scale back, but the timing was not in any way decided. However, after the events of 2006, to his credit, he deemed it to be in the best interests of the greater Max community - our shareholder base, our employees, our policyholders - that there be a change of leadership.

As a public company, and particularly as an underwriting company heading into our major renewal season, once such a decision has been made, getting to the other side of that decision as quickly as possible has benefits. The less uncertainty you provide the marketplace, the better off you are as an underwriter. So the board and the company had a lot to gain by making our period of uncertainty as compact as possible.

I’ve been in insurance my entire career, and for the most part have been in the CEO role at a variety of insurance, reinsurance and broking organisations. For the past two-plus years, I had been doing project or consulting work and some investment banking. I had been thinking about getting back into an operating role.

I had not thought about coming to Bermuda, but I am very keen on Max Re as a company. Our product mix is terrific; we are blessed with an abundance of unique talent; and the platforms upon which we write business — Bermuda, Dublin and soon the US — are everything we need for future success. So, the combination of the company’s needs and my own personal interests happened to come together at a similar point in time. It’s not always that fortuitous, but it did work out.

Gazette: Did you put yourself forward, or did people approach yoI>

Becker<$>: No, I didn’t put myself forward. I don’t think that, as a director, that’s an appropriate thing to do. At the time that I was asked to step in, no one on the board really knew about my interest in perhaps doing something on a longer-term basis in an operating role. What they did ask me to do was to step in until they could figure out what to do. I acted in an interim capacity for two or three weeks. It was only after we agreed on that, that I shared with them that I was already going down this other road.

Gazette: You’ve moved to Bermu

Becker<$>: Yes, I’m in the process of moving here. I’ve rented a place. I’ve been visiting Bermuda since 1979.

Gazette: From your perspective, how has the Island changed since 1?

Becker<$>: As a broker, I set up my first captive company here in 1979. It still exists. I was in the brokerage business in 1994, and then I went over to the underwriting side. I became a more frequent visitor to Bermuda in 1997, when I was on the board of Trenwick, which bought La Salle, and we started coming down here for our board meetings. So I went from being in Bermuda two to three times a year to four to six times a year.

Then, with my involvement with Max, that stepped up a little bit more. I was able to have a pretty good observation post watching what was a very relaxed, single-purpose insurance environment become a global trading operation. Bermuda today is second to none in terms of its global importance as an insurance and reinsurance centre. It has a feel like, and is very analogous to London, where you have so many resources and so much talent and capital within walking distance. Bermuda is a stimulating place to do business.

Gazette: One of the hallmarks of Max in the past has been its flexibility. Will Max continue to exhibit that flexibiy?

Becker<$>: Max is a very different company today than it was when it was founded. Max was founded as an alternative reinsurance writer, with a different investment approach. Max today is a reasonably traditional insurance and reinsurance underwriter, albeit with a specialty focus or orientation. We are a niche and a specialty underwriter.

Max has been very smart about increasing and decreasing its capital allocation based on changes in the market, or market cycles or segments. Most companies talk about doing that; I think Max has done a better job of executing it. Perhaps it’s easier to do that at a smaller size and scale. Part of it is probably a tribute to the type of business that we’ve written — lower transaction accounts and higher premiums — and therefore we haven’t had a huge infrastructure to feed, That can make you a little less nimble sometimes.

But, whatever the reason, the organisation is rightly credited with being highly strategic about where it’s writing business and where it’s not writing business. We clearly plan to continue that. We very much are total return underwriters.

Our ability to emphasise or de-emphasise segments directly relates to the talent that we have in the organisation. Talent expands our possibilities.

Gazette: How committed does Max remain to alternative investme?

Becker<$>: The investment strategy has evolved. During the 2004, ‘05, ‘06 years, when I was on the board, we fluctuated between 28 and 35 percent alternatives. When we announced third quarter earnings, we announced a policy shift to take our alternative allocation to a range of 15 to 20 percent. If you consider alternatives to be equities, high-yield bonds, or hedge funds, or anything other than investment-rate fixed income instruments, and you look at the companies on the Island, most of them are probably between eight and 15 percent alternatives. Max is going to be a little higher than that range, but with our liability mix, we’re comfortable that’s an appropriate level.

Gazette: How do you look at 2007 from a Max, and a Bermuda market perspive?

Becker<$>: My expectation is that reported results in 2007 will continue to be very good. The obvious caveat is storms and earthquakes. But absent those, 2007 should be another very good year for the Bermuda companies. January 1 renewal business continued to be quite healthy. Certainly there were some pricing changes, but none of a magnitude that gives us concern. We’ll continue to monitor it very closely, but our impression at this point is that this should be another good year.