Stockwatch

The week's winners
Cox up 42.9%
Wellington up 23.6%
Goshawk up 11%

The week's losers
Chaucer down 16.7%
St Paul Companies down 5.6%

When a company loses £114m and its share price doesn't collapse, you know it's worth a second look.

Brit is the biggest of the listed Lloyd's vehicles and as such, is best placed to generate the advantages of scale so badly needed in the sector.

Given the desperate need for capital throughout the industry, it has the chance to swallow up the best of the rest.

Time is running out for underwriters with a market capitalisation of less than, say, £30m.

But if Brit or another operation is to emerge as a super Lloyd's player - and with a combined market capitalisation of just £1.3bn, there isn't room for more than one - it will have to nurture, rather than stifle, individual underwriting talent.

Some heavyweight names have been buying into the sector.

William Berkley of WR Berkley is buying 20% of Kiln and Peter Wood is taking a slice of Cox. SVB has been popular this week with Morley Fund Management ,which pushed its total holding up to 5%, and Invesco English and International Trust plc, which increased its stake to 3.2%

Independent Investment Trust bought a chunk of Hardy - and now holds 5% of the company.

But other smart money has been getting in for some time.

Rostrum, the joint venture between Michael Wade, the former chief executive of CLM that merged with SVB in 1999, has spent 18 months building up a portfolio that includes large stakes in Kiln, Brit, Chaucer, Amlin and SVB.

Wade, who has previously argued for consolidation at Lloyd's to create critical mass, gets a seat on Brit's board.

It makes Brit - and the others at Lloyd's - look like a seriously good buy.

Heath Lambert: Looking elsewhere, Heath Lambert is, according to market rumours, set to float within the next two months, albeit at a price considerably lower than the 150p said to have been mooted.

It must be watching Jardine Lloyd Thompson's stock on its seemingly inexorable rise to its new 52-week high of 668p.

Aon: Life is not as easy at Aon. It warned its first quarter earnings would fall short of estimates by as much as 36% as it takes a $56m hit to reserve against a reinsurance dispute over the WTC.

Willis: Fellow broker Willis said its quarterly profits were up to $68m from $39m in the same period last year.

Guardian IT: R&SA took advantage of the rising price of Guardian IT to unload nearly 439,000 shares in the troubled disaster recovery firm.

Chaucer: The Lloyd's player reported a pre-tax loss of £31.6m for last year, down from a loss of £5m in 2000.

The Lloyd's insurer's loss from the 11 September attacks, at £7m, was lower than the £8m to £12m originally estimated.

The result is equivalent to a loss of 31.9p a share, down from a loss of 9.3p a share last year. There will be no final dividend.