RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. announced chairman and chief executive James N. Stanard resigned in light of investigations into the company's earnings restatement.
The reinsurer said its chief operating officer and chief financial officer, John Lummis, will retire at the end of his contract on June 30, 2006. Controller Marty Merritt also left the company. Neill Currie, who co-founded RenaissanceRe with Stanard in 1993 and rejoined the company in July, has been named the company's new chief executive.
In July, the SEC delivered Wells notices to Stanard and a former senior vice president in the company's specialty reinsurance division, Michael Cash, saying that the commission would recommend civil enforcement action against the men for breaking federal securities laws. The Bermuda-based company restated its financial results from 2001 to 2003 earlier this year in connection with the government's reinsurance investigation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Justice Department and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer are concerned that some companies have used finite-risk reinsurance agreements to manipulate their earnings statements.
