News in brief

Acquisition for Beazley

Lloyd’s insurer Beazley last week acquired First State Management Group, a US underwriter specialising in surplus lines commercial property insurance. It also has contributed £27m additional capital to its Lloyd’s syndicates to support First State’s underwriting this year. Judy Patterson, First State’s president and chief operating officer, will report to Mark Bernacki, head of Beazley’s property group division in the USA.

Former chief exec banned

Mike Vukelic, a former chief executive of a General Re subsidiary, has been banned by the FSA from working in finance for helping insurers hide their losses. Vukelic, chief executive of The AltSol business from August 1997 to October 2002, designed contracts that helped insurers exclude losses from their accounts. The FSA said two of the three companies that used the products collapsed.

UK athletics picks Marsh

Marsh has been appointed by UK Athletics, the national governing body for athletics in the UK, to manage the organisation’s insurance and risk programmes.

Second life for Equitas?

A similar model to the Lloyd’s Equitas vehicle could be used to clean up banks’ toxic assets, says Peter Viggers, a member of the Treasury Select Committee. Viggers, who was elected to the council of Lloyd’s in 1990, said the idea to ring-fence bad assets had helped steer Lloyd’s away from its problems. Equitas was set up in 1996 and received a $7bn reinsurance boost from a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary. “Many of us spent nights worrying whether the Equitas model would work, but it did,” said Viggers.