underwriter Mr. John Laing, will be Bermuda-based, Lloyd's List reported this week.

The new marine liability company will seek $25 million of initial capital and plans to be in business by the end of the year, writes the publication's shipping editor Mr. Jim Mulrenan.

It will offer up to $100 million of P&I cover on a fixed premium basis and attempt to limit exposure by not ensuring tankers or US brown water risks.

Mr. Laing, 72, who has come out of retirement, claims there is growing dissatisfaction with the P&I clubs and believes his new company, provisionally called Newco Insurance, will find a ready market, the newspaper said.

Newco, according to a confidential prospectus circulating in London, is targeting Far Eastern, Indian, Greek, Italian and German fleets.

Newco is anticipating over $11.6 million of premium in its first year and $30 million in its fifth year.

The reinsurance programme will be arranged by Lloyd's broker Stirling Cooke.

Mr. Laing, founder of Oceanus, a P&I club that collapsed in the mid-1980s, entered the P&I business before the Second World War.

He is also the founder of the Strike Club, a Bermuda-based mutual which is the world's largest insurer of industrial relation related risks for the world's fleet.

The Strike Club, which was formed in 1957, occupies offices in the Commerce Building in Hamilton and reported strike activity in Australian and Canadian ports resulted in a downturn in its insurance fund last year.

The club reported an investment loss of $66,000 compared to a $2 million profit last year while premium income was down $1.2 million to $8.4 million.

Retained funds decreased from $30.4 million to $29.1 million, said Lloyd's List.