The week's winners:
Allianz up 6.9%
Wellington up 2.3%
The week's losers
Cox down 7.4%
JLT down 4.3%
The Marsh and Heath Lambert affair appears to have something of a mystical quality about it: just when one deal is killed off, another one seems to spring up in its place.
The latest revelation seems to be that Heath's US business is looking to go its own way and is exploring various MBO opportunities.
This has certainly overtaken the recriminations that continue to be hurled, in a gentlemanly sort of way, over whether the proposed acquisition was scuppered by Marsh's unwillingness to pay Heath's asking price or by difficulties turned up in its due diligence.
Elsewhere, Brit's stock seemed to shrug off any suggestions of concern over its withdrawal from direct aviation business.
The company announced it was ending its aviation business immediately - including airlines, general aviation and aviation products. Aviation reinsurance, aviation war and space are unaffected.
It had written about £22m of a forecast aggregate premium income of £60m, which was expected to be profitable.
Brit chief executive of underwriting Dane Douetil said: "Despite opportunities, we do not feel that the aviation market has been able to sufficiently re-structure its product offering to give us sufficient comfort that the account will provide a suitable return on capital employed over the medium and long term."
Brit group chief executive Neil Eckert said: "While aviation may currently be profitable, we feel that we can more effectively deploy our capital in other areas of our business."
The company would manage the run-off of all its existing accounts.
The stock gained 2.3%, or 1.75p, on Tuesday when the company made its announcement, to trade at 77.7p.
