Maiden CEO steps down amidst restructuring

Maiden Holdings is replacing the CEO and the chief financial officer amidst a restructuring of the business.

Maiden’s president and CEO Art Raschbaum has decided to retire for personal reasons effective Sept. 1, 2018, the company said. Raschbaum is being replaced by Lawrence Metz, Maiden’s current executive vice president, general counsel and secretary.

Additionally, Karen Schmitt, chief financial officer, has announced her retirement and will remain with the company as executive vice president until March 1, 2019. Schmitt is being replaced by Patrick Haveron, currently president of Maiden Reinsurance (Maiden Bermuda), who will take the roles of Maiden’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer effective Sept. 1, 2018. Haveron will remain president of Maiden Bermuda.

“We appreciate the many contributions that Art has made to Maiden over the years,” said Barry Zyskind, chairman of the board of directors.

“He has demonstrated strong leadership and business acumen since joining Maiden in 2008. I want to recognize his significant contributions to Maiden and thank him for his many years of service. We are also appreciative of the contributions that Karen has made to our organization over many years and sincerely thank her for agreeing to stay on to assist with the transition.

“During our strategic review, the board recognized some very valuable business in our diversified platform. We will be focusing on those niches in the future, which along with cutting expenses, will bring the company back to acceptable levels of profitability. We are confident in our new executive management team to execute this plan.”

Earlier in 2018 Maiden launched a strategic review of its operations. As part of this ongoing process, the company is evaluating a broad range of options, but the company will be maintaining a substantial presence in the US reinsurance market which draws on Maiden’s specialist focus from which it expects to build, according to the corporate statement.

Maiden Holdings focuses on providing non-catastrophic, customized reinsurance products and services to small and mid-size insurance companies in the US and Europe.

The company anticipates that it will complete its strategic review during the second half of 2018 with the majority of this initiative completed during the upcoming third quarter. As Maiden continues to evaluate various additional strategic measures, it expects improved results of operations from its diversified segment in the future via enhanced underwriting standards and expense reduction. These actions are expected to position the company for growth with greater operating efficiencies going forward, the statement said.

In the first six months of 2018, the diversified reinsurance segment produced an underwriting loss of $1.2 million compared to a loss of $26.3 million in the same period of 2017.

Overall, the combined ratio of the group was 103.9 percent in the first six months of 2018 compared to 103.4 percent in the same period a year ago.

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