CITY AND SUBURBAN
A signal in Morse that Lloyd's of London must change from the top
CHRISTOPHER FILD ES
Lloyd's of London must be the only business in the world to stop production for the day by holding a shareholders' meeting on the shop floor. Like so many things at Lloyd's it is traditional, it is not busi- nesslike, and it happened again this week because no one had thought about it. Other unbusinesslike things happen because Lloyd's wrote them into its own Act of Par- liament. For a business in trouble, this is suicidal, but then Lloyd's is not used to thinking of itself as a business — more a way of life, an institution or a club of frac- tious individuals. Losing £2 billion concen- trates the mind, though. Reform in a trou- bled business must start from the top, and at last, I now expect to see it. The signals were there in the report from David Rowl- and's working party on the future of Lloyd's. The business, Mr Rowland con- cluded, must have something more like a board of directors — so Lloyd's governing council should be split in half to reflect its two different functions: running the mar- kets, and regulating them. Codswallop, said David Coleridge, the chairman. On second thoughts and after loud protests, he warmed to the idea and asked Sir Jeremy Morse, chairman of Lloyds Bank, to look at it. We shall hear from Sir Jeremy soon.
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