Centre Solutions (Bermuda) Ltd. president and chief executive officer David Brown is going to retire at the end of this year. Many wonder why Mr. Brown, 40, is leaving a lucrative and successful career so early.

He is retiring from the day to day running of the shop to spend more time with his family, a decision he had been mulling over for about two years. Earlier this year he told his partners he wanted out.

Soon after that announcement he developed a major allergy to microscopic dust mites and had to take a leave of absence in April for two months. Of course, people began saying he had a nervous breakdown and was forced to retire. The two events are unrelated, he stresses.

"I was thinking of retiring for about two years,'' Mr. Brown said.

"Unrelated to that I got ill in April. Doctors in the US have told me the worst place for dust mites was a warm humid climate. We are living in dust mite heaven here. I was getting more and more allergic to this. I didn't know what it was at the time. I would go to bed and probably get two hours sleep.

I'm a guy who would sleep eight or nine hours if I wanted to. I would go to bed and I would wake up within two hours. I was sleep deprived for about a year and I was physically and mentally exhausted. I called my partners and told them I needed to take time off. It was a closing down of my mind and body. The timing was unfortunate.'' Once the problem was identified he spent a month in the US getting treatment for the allergic reaction. The treatments will end soon, and he will continue to live in Bermuda, fighting it out with the dust mites.

"I have not felt this good for four or five years,'' he said.

Retirement from the company was a tough decision to make, but he feels it was the right one. Besides he's not letting go completely.

Brown: Europe is driving growth "This is a company that is run by people who are friends not just colleagues,'' he said. "I will still be involved with the group. I'm not leaving entirely. What I'm getting away from is the day to day responsibilities -- the responsibilities of growing the business worldwide. I will be involved on a consulting basis in projects in which I can add value. I intend to maintain my interest in the company.'' He's leaving a company he joined in 1993 as chief accounting officer. Prior to that he had been with Ernst & Young in Bermuda for ten years, specialising in insurance and reinsurance auditing and consulting.

He became president and chief executive officer in 1995, taking over from Michael Palm. Mr. Palm died earlier this month.

Centre Re was founded in 1988 by Mr. Palm and Steven Gluckstern with $250 million in funding. The group has since grown to about $9 billion in assets and is wholly owned by Zurich Insurance Group.

Under a reorganisation last year the company separated its property and casualty reinsurance operations from its corporate activities. The companies serving mainly corporate customers was renamed Centre Solutions. The transition of the Centre Re reinsurance divisions to the global business of Zurich Re is still underway.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brown this month oversaw the roof wetting ceremony of the new Zurich Centre building at the Waterfront development. It's where Centre Solutions and the Zurich Group companies on the island will have their headquarters.

Centre Solutions and the Zurich operations have a staff of about 100 on the Island. Centre Solutions, which has grown to have offices in New York, Dublin San Francisco, Hong Kong, Sydney, London, and Zurich has a staff of about 350.

With that kind of size and growth Mr. Brown sees the company in a process of transition in the way it operates.

"It's entering a new phase now where personal interrelations between people have to change,'' he said. "It's a fairly tight-knit company. Now we have 350 people it's hard to have those kind of relationships. It needs to get more like a normal company and have more structure.'' The company has also changed substantially in the type of business it's doing.

"The expansion into New York and London were decisions I pushed and made years ago,'' Mr. Brown said. "When I joined this company one of our big concerns was that we were mostly Bermuda-based and we were relying almost totally on US-sourced business. We made a big push to expand globally. And now, although it would be a blow, any one country or any one region in which we have a problem isn't going to be the end of this company. It's got such a diverse range of operations that no one country is critical to the operations.'' The company has also pushed to expand its expertise into new areas of business. Centre Re pioneered use of finite risk reinsurance in which ultimate exposure was limited, the contracts were for longer terms, and can contain profit sharing provisions. Since then the company expanded its expertise into financial risk contracts where the underlying risk arises from financial elements such as credit risk, or coverage for lease guarantees.

"Centre Solutions still provides the high-end highly sophisticated reinsurance,'' Mr. Brown said. "In reality our growth is outside the reinsurance business. The company is not really diversifying. What it's doing is taking its core idea and just applying it to the broader market. It's entering with the same type of structured model it has used successfully now for ten years. It's getting involved in new businesses but in ways in which the company understands. The company's growth of business is astounding everybody including me.'' While the New York office is a big contributor to the business, it's Europe that's driving growth.

"We have had greater growth in the last few years in Europe -- way bigger than in the US,'' he said. "More than half our revenue today is outside the US.'' The company is currently considering a short list of potential candidates to replace Mr. Brown as head of the Bermuda operation. Oversight of Centre Solutions' global operations has already been passed on to the head of the company's operations in New York, David Wasserman.

A core committee of a half-dozen executives essentially co-ordinate the company's global operations. Mr. Wasserman was chosen to chair that committee.

"Each office is run by a relatively autonomous individual,'' Mr. Brown said.

"That's a model that Zurich uses worldwide. But it means those persons in each location can focus on getting business done. What my job was as a global CEO is to get all those people together that run the local operations together and focus on the global business. Where should we expand? What new markets should we enter? What about the kind of risks we take? That's the job of the CEO. Even though you have the power of the autocrat, in this company people operate on a consensus basis. That role, the new head, will be David Wasserman.'' Does that mean Bermuda's role in the organisation is diminished? "What we are doing in Bermuda has grown a lot since then,'' he answers. "The business has grown all over the world. Bermuda was every thing in the beginning. Bermuda is still important in terms of volume and what it does. It does on average about the same amount of business as it has always done. It's just that business around the world has grown a lot. Now Bermuda is one of many offices producing value. The company has diversified from Bermuda as many companies are doing today. They are growing assets away from Bermuda. Bermuda is limited in how you can grow here. We are moving inexorably east.'' RETIRING -- David Brown