Action group leaders dispute Lloyd's losses

A ROW over how much Lloyd's names might eventually lose has broken out between leaders of action groups seeking financial help for them.

Michael Deeny, chairman of the Gooda Walker action group, has clashed with Christopher Stockwell, who heads the Lloyd's Names Action Group Working Party. Mr Deeny's group is fighting on behalf of 3,000 members who face losses of pounds 835m on syndicates once managed by the Gooda Walker agency. Mr Stockwell's group is trying to co-ordinate the efforts of all aggrieved members.

The two men have fallen out over Mr Stockwell's attempts to provide estimates of overall losses.

Mr Stockwell has said all Lloyd's members face a total loss of pounds 7.7bn, but Mr Deeny says he has wrongly projected the Gooda Walker losses.

'Not every syndicate will arrive at the maximum possible loss, although of course some may,' he says in a letter to Mr Stockwell. 'It is a bit like saying that if you put pounds 1,000 on red to come up on a roulette wheel 1,000 times, you will be bound to lose pounds 1m. It is precisely because I was afraid that you would misuse the figures in this way that I was unwilling to offer figures for the possible deterioration on the Gooda Walker syndicates.'

Chatset, a firm of analysts run by Lloyd's underwriting members, is to announce today that the market will report further losses of at least pounds 1.7bn later this year.