become president of Bermuda-based startup Arrow Reinsurance Co. Ltd.

The move is a coup of sorts for Arrow's owner Goldman Sachs Group, L.P., the giant investment banking firm that set up the company to directly challenge the traditional insurers at their own game.

The company is working to bring about the convergence of the financial and insurance sectors and has set up offices at Pitts Bay Road.

A company spokesman in New York said he could not give further details on how many people would be hired for the Arrow operation, as Goldman Sachs was about to issue an initial public offering.

Mr. Astwood, 38, has been with the Registrar of Companies for nine years. He joined in 1990 as inspector of companies responsible for the insurance division, and become the Registrar of Companies five years later.

Prior to joining the civil service Mr. Astwood was a manager at Ernst & Young where he specialised in the audit of insurance and reinsurance companies.

Astwood to quit as Registrar Arrow was established in November 1997 as a specialty reinsurer to serve as a bridge between the traditional insurance risk transfer market and the global capital markets. Arrow provides insurance, reinsurance and derivative contracts to customers, then hedges the amount in the form of securities, derivatives or reinsurance.

A statement from the company said deals had already been completed to transfer property catastrophe risk, weather risk, financial risks, dual trigger risk and basis risk to the capital markets.

In what is believed to be one of the company's first deals, Arrow helped to provide loss protection against hurricane risk last year. Arrow Re provide a property catastrophe excess of loss reinsurance contract to Constitution Re, a New York-based reinsurer.

Arrow Re, along with E.W. Blanch Capital Markets, hedged the bulk of the exposure by entering into a series of industry loss warranty contracts against industry-wide losses with a variety of reinsurers.

GS Risk Advisors and Swiss Re New Markets then created securities which transferred and securitised the difference between the Constitution Re contract and the industry-based contracts, and sold them to investors.

The transaction resulted in a new layer of protection against Gulf and East Coast US hurricane risk for Constitution Re.

Arrow will be in competition with Lehman Re, set up by Lehman Brothers on the Island. The companies are nicknamed transformers in the industry.