XL Group plc has no plans to relocate senior executives from Bermuda to Ireland, following the move of the company's holding company to Dublin.

The global business insurer's chief executive officer Mike McGavick told The Royal Gazette that there was no requirement from the Irish for XL to base its top group executives in the Emerald Isle in order for the company to be domiciled there.

A relocation of executive leadership from Bermuda would likely have reduced the need for corporate administration jobs to be based on the Island.

Mr. McGavick said: "There is no implication from the change in our holding company's location on the operations of the company.

"There is no requirement from the Irish beyond our already extensive operations in Dublin, which have been there since the early 1990s."

XL's holding company was never in Bermuda. It completed its move to Ireland from the Cayman Islands on July 1.

But the company, which has 77 offices in 27 countries, and was formerly led by Brian O'Hara, has made Bermuda the home of its corporate headquarters, something which brings with it many support staff jobs.

XL announced a profit of $191.8 million for the second quarter on Tuesday, and operating income of 71 cents per share, beating analysts' average estimates of 64 cents.

Mr. McGavick said he was pleased with the company's performance in "a very difficult market". And he saw no end in sight to the ongoing soft pricing conditions.

"It's dragging and there's nothing out there obvious that will change it," he said.

The CEO said the continuing healthy results of many insurers had been boosted by favourable prior year development — the release of reserves that exceeded estimates of what was needed to pay claims relating to past events. This effect could peter out in time, but that alone was unlikely to provoke major change to the pricing environment.

XL also announced a $23.5 million charge in the second quarter for the termination of guarantees to the European Investment Bank, which had been written by XL's former affiliate, Syncora Holdings.

Financial guaranty exposures through Syncora, formerly known as Security Capital Assurance, had a crippling impact on XL during the credit crisis. XL paid out around $2 billion in 2008 to extricate itself from most of those exposures.

"There is a continuing balance of some remaining financial guaranty exposures, but they are getting down to being something that we don't worry overly about," Mr. McGavick said.

Of the remaining exposures of around $850 million, Mr. McGavick expected the biggest, of around $400 million and relating to a Chilean toll road, to be terminated within a couple of weeks.

In a conference call with analysts after the results were announced, XL's CEO of insurance operations, David Duclos, said the company had "recaptured" between 25 and 30 percent of the business that it temporarily lost during 2008.