Sixteen of IPC Re's 30 staff will leave the company at the end of the year following the company's takeover by Validus Holdings Ltd. earlier this month.

All of IPC Re's top management staff and underwriters are to go, while Validus management met separately with each of the remaining 22 underwriting support staff yesterday to tell them who would stay and who would go.

Validus chairman and chief executive officer Ed Noonan told The Royal Gazette yesterday that the company had tried to deal with the situation as fairly and compassionately as possible.

He added that all departing staff would leave on terms that far exceeded the requirements of the Employment Act.

All of the 30 IPC Re staff will remain on the payroll until December 31, giving them the chance to earn a year-end bonus.

The severance package includes a payment that is at least 50 percent of salary and departing staff will also receive retention bonuses for having stayed on during the transitional period.

Validus general counsel Jerome Dill added that most would walk away with the equivalent of a year's compensation. And he added that 13 of the 14 staff being retained were Bermudian.

Mr. Noonan paid tribute to the professionalism of the IPC Re staff who had remained with the company during the seven months of uncertainty since Max Capital struck a later derailed deal to merge with the company.

A bidding war ensued and Validus completed the takeover on September 4, since when the IPC staff had been "top flight in every regard", Mr. Noonan said.

"The two companies had so much overlap in their business that we did not need to take on IPC's underwriters, though they are good underwriters with strong relationships and an excellent track record," Mr. Noonan said.

"As with most mergers, when it came to the senior staff, there was not a whole lot of integration to be done."

Mr. Noonan said it had been a sad day for the eight support staff who are to lose their jobs, but he added: "We have tried to be very generous in our severance packages. And we've been compassionate and humane in the way we have done it."

From an operational standpoint, the merger of the two companies was going smoothly, Mr. Noonan said.

The transfer of data from IPC Re into Validus's systems had also gone well.

Many of IPC's clients were also Validus clients before the merger, and the market, as a whole, had reacted positively to the amalgamation, the CEO added.

"It speaks to the fact that all the hard work we've put in on this is now paying off," Mr. Noonan said.