November 2007/2

Banking interest grows with Goldman Sachs Lloyd's entry; Towergate firm swoops for Erinaceous teams; GA sells down Xchanging stake; Aviva in £350mn UK cost cutting programme; Canopius and Talbot make Lloyd’s Asia move...

Marsh Ltd will be forced to defend itself on charges of poaching a senior aviation team and confidential business information from United Insurance Brokers (UIB) in a trial scheduled to take place next summer.

London market reinsurers led by Allianz have had their appeal dismissed against the striking out of significant parts of their defence in the controversial EUR44.3mn dispute with the North Korean national insurer.

QBE Limit and Markel International's UK High Court showdown with broker Surety Guarantee Consultants Ltd (SGC) and other defendants over construction bond fraud allegations has been postponed until next year.

Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter is developing a product to allow (re)insurers to hedge the risk of under-reserving on long-tail casualty lines of business.

Lehman Bros has been given the green light by the Financial Services Authority to begin trading at its subsidiary Libero Ventures Ltd, which aims to transfer "vanilla" exposures by employing securitisation...

Catastrophe bond issuance has resumed after a hiatus during the traditionally quiet summer period for insurance-linked securities (ILS) - overshadowed by the post sub-prime credit crisis - as the market awaits...

It was a familiar tale as Bermuda's (re)insurance community booked third quarter figures that set strong profits from two years of benign underwriting conditions against a backdrop of falling rates and a less positive outlook for the sector.

A new wave of fear gripped Wall Street this week, symbolised by the sub-prime related exposures of the monoline credit insurers to a new credit crisis, dubbed "Version 2.0" by industry insiders.

The aviation sector's broker merry-go-round continues as Steve Doyle, manager of Aon's Aviation and Aerospace Global Practice Group, has resigned his post and is heading to rival Willis Group Holdings.

Allianz continued its strategic stake-building in the UK distribution chain this month, with confirmation that it has acquired a 10 percent minority share of Yorkshire-based broker The Oval Group, as predicted by The Insurance Insider in September.

Tysers has sealed a management buyout, bucking the trend for small to mid-size London broker sales to larger rivals and private equity investors.