Chris McKeown Departs from New Ocean as AXA XL Expands in Alternative Capital

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Apr 01, 2019, 12:30 ET

HAMILTON, Bermuda, April 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- AXA XL has announced that Chris McKeown, the former CEO of New Ocean Capital Management Limited ("New Ocean"), has stepped down from his role as Vice Chairman to pursue other interests.

Mr. McKeown, who has more than 30 years of re/insurance and Alternative Capital management experience, was the founding Chief Executive Officer of New Ocean in 2013. He, along with his team, 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, Mr. McKeown has 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 customized portfolios of risk to third party investors directly aligned with AXA XL's global underwriting franchise. The AXA XL Alternative Capital team, led by Daniel Brookman, Head of Alternative Capital, have achieved notable success to date, with a growth in assets under management from USD 465 million as of December 2017 to more than USD 1 billion as of December 2018.

Daniel Brookman stated: "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, added: "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, 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. To date, New Ocean has managed investments in property catastrophe, specialty and whole account lines of business.

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ABOUT AXA XL

AXA XL, the property & casualty and specialty risk division of AXA, provides insurance and risk management products and services for mid-sized companies through to large multinationals, and reinsurance solutions to insurance companies globally. We partner with those who move the world forward. To learn more, visit www.axaxl.com

ABOUT AXA XL ALTERNATIVE CAPITAL

AXA XL Alternative Capital focuses exclusively on developing and managing investment strategies within the insurance, reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class on behalf of large institutional investors such as pension funds, sovereign funds, life insurers, asset managers and other asset allocators. Committed to alignment of interest between all parties, AXA XL and/or AXA Group co-participates on each risk shared with third party investors in these strategies.

SOURCE AXA XL