IS THERE LIFE AFTER LLOYDS?

Abstract

London is burning. Lloyds of London that is. The Society which could well be described as the 'Mecca' of energy insurance, is under fire. Record losses have been reported in each of the last three accounting years, and there does not appear to be any significant improvement in sight. Added to the Financial problems are the compounding difficulties of internal litigation, allegations of bad management, and a severely dented international trading reputation.

The reasons for the current malaise at Lloyds are a combination of internal and external factors, contributed to by an unprecedented level of worldwide catastrophes certainly, but also the result of poor market practises and what could be regarded as an unsuitable business structure for the 1990s.

Lloyds has however determined to meet the challenge and is in the process of implementing the most radical series of changes in its 306 year history. Measures to be introduced include isolation of old year liabilities from new, resolving ongoing problems with litigation and disputes amongst its membership, improving management, leadership, and business processes, reforming the hitherto sacred agency system, and restructuring the capital base of the organisation to amongst other things admit Corporate Members for the first time and manage underwriting capacity more effectively.

Lloyds now wishes to be perceived as 'lean and focused' and has produced a global target profit for 1995 of £900 million, representing what most participants would consider a quite acceptable 33 per cent pre-tax return on funds at Lloyds for its individual Names and a 20 per cent pre-tax return for its Incorporated Members. At the same time it has pledged to reduce its own costs by £190 million and decrease its internal staff from 12 000 to 9 500 over the same period.

The future of Lloyds and all of those who depend on her is however by no means assured. Significant impediments will have to be overcome if the new initiatives are to succeed, not the least of which is the resistance of a 300 year old institution to change and increased regulation.

Opinion even in the City of London itself is clearly divided as to the potential for a successful recovery. The question remains, is there life after Lloyds?