Bermudian-based Axa XL has announced that Chris McKeown has stepped down from his role as vice-chairman of New Ocean Capital Management Ltd.

Mr McKeown, formerly the chief executive officer of New Ocean, is to “pursue other interests”, the company said in a statement.

Mr McKeown, who has more than 30 years of re/insurance and alternative capital management experience, was the founding CEO of New Ocean in 2013, the company said.

Along with his team, the company said, Mr McKeown was instrumental in building out the platform of the then XL majority-owned asset management affiliate, attracting strategic investment, engaging third-party investors, and demonstrating the benefits of an affiliation with a strong reinsurer balance sheet.

Most recently, the company said, Mr McKeown served as an advisor to Axa XL’s Alternative Capital business and continued to serve as a director of certain New Ocean-managed funds.

Axa XL completed the acquisition of all third party ownership interests in New Ocean in November 2018, transforming New Ocean into an internally managed entity focused on delivering customised portfolios of risk to third party-investors directly aligned with Axa XL’s global underwriting franchise, the company said.

The company said that the Axa XL Alternative Capital team, led by Daniel Brookman, have achieved “notable success” to date, with a growth in assets under management from $465 million as of December 2017 to more than $1 billion as of December 2018.

Mr Brookman said: “As we expand Axa XL’s presence in the alternative capital space, we will continue to leverage our internal resources to create additional catastrophe and non-catastrophe portfolios for third party investors in co-participation with the underwriting franchises of Axa XL as well as Axa Group. We wish to thank Chris and his team for their efforts to date.”

Charles Cooper, Axa XL’s chief executive, reinsurance, said: “We are excited about New Ocean’s future as an aligned asset manager, and thank Chris for his efforts in the initial phase of New Ocean’s development.”

Founded in July 2013, the company said, New Ocean provided the opportunity for Axa XL to partner with leading private-equity fund manager Stone Point Capital and later with Japanese conglomerate, Mitsui & Co, Ltd, to develop an ILS fund manager platform serving institutional investors seeking access to opportunities across the reinsurance industry.