Stockwatch

The week's winners
Bradstock up 33%
Culver up 12.5%

The week's losers
Aviva down 16.7%
R&SA down 15.1%

Who on earth would want Bob Mendelsohn's job?

Despite the obvious attraction of any post that can offer a £1m handshake, there's no way that heading up Royal & SunAlliance (R&SA) can be considered an easy task with the group in its current state.

But former chief executive Richard Gamble is reported to be interested in his old job, and Sir Ian Prosser, chairman of Six Continents, could step in as chairman when Sir Patrick Gillam retires next year.

Whoever ends up in the hot seat will know that it's going to take more than a change of name plate on the boss's door to breathe some life back into the shares.

Investors show no signs of buying into the stock until R&SA bolsters its capital position.

And with that looking like it could be at least a month away, the new chief will have to get his skates on to take advantage of the hard market.

In the meantime, investors looking for a bargain in the non-life sector are going to be more interested in Zurich Financial Services.

Its stock has spent the best part of the year leaking value as a result of fears over just what skeletons new chief Jim Schiro would find hidden in the closet.

These fears are beginning to look overstated, helped by an actuarial report putting net assets at only about 5% less than expectations.

The chances of a sharp rebound rest on the success of the capital raising but

Zurich has the name, a safe pair of hands at the helm and the market to make sure that it is the success story of 2003.

With capital raising being the flavour of the month, it perhaps should not have been surprising to hear that Aegon, the world's fifth largest insurer, is talking about a financial restructuring that would give it access to more capital.

A trust fund that owns the lion's share of the group would reduce its stake, giving some of the proceeds to Aegon to be ploughed into the business.

Aviva is to sell off its operations in Pakistan, which together have assets worth £2.6m, to New Jubilee Insurance Company and the Switzerland-based Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development.