Lloyds TSB, parent owner of subsidiary insurance giant Scottish Widows, last week moved to replace current Scottish Widows Chief Executive, Mike Ross, with their own man, Archie Kane, with effect 1 October 2003.
The moves precedes a shake-up at ailing Scottish Widows, with Lloyds effectively re-focusing Scottish Widows and having alternative strategies for the insurer over the next few years.
Our view
An unsurprising move given that Widows have suffered significantly over the last few years with performance both in terms of sales, investment returns and mis-selling problems over the last few years.
Widows have been hit hard by new rules imposed by the industry regulator, the Financial Services Authority, and it would seem that Lloyds appear to have set aside huge sums to pay for potential mis-selling compensation problems.