Skip to main content

Direct Line's CEO was replaced.

The insur­ance group said yes­ter­day that Penny James had agreed with the board that she would leave

Crash

imme­di­ately and that Jon Green­wood, the chief com­mer­cial officer, would become act­ing chief exec­ut­ive. «It has been a priv­ilege to lead Dir­ect Line Group for nearly four years,» said James. Dir­ect Line’s chair Danuta Gray thanked James for her ser­vice since join­ing as chief fin­an­cial officer in 2017 and get­ting the top job two years later. A per­son close to James said the depar­ture was a mutual decision.

Gray said the board would work closely with the interim chief exec­ut­ive to focus on «our pri­or­it­ies of driv­ing our per­form­ance and restor­ing bal­ance sheet resi­li­ence, fol­low­ing the sig­ni­fic­ant head­winds the busi­ness faced in recent months». Dir­ect Line moved to strengthen its bal­ance sheet on Thursday with a rein­sur­ance deal that it said lif­ted its solvency ratio. Pres­sure has built on James as spiralling infla­tion in used car prices, and other costs pushed up the size of its pay­outs, for­cing Dir­ect Line to issue a profit warn­ing last July. In Novem­ber, it fur­ther revised its under­writ­ing profit guid­ance.

The insurer’s shares, which have fallen more than 40 per cent over the past year due to the profit warn­ings, slipped 2.8 per cent yes­ter­day. James is the second chief exec­ut­ive in the sec­tor to step down in two days. He has been replaced by Thi­erry Léger, former chief under­writ­ing officer at rival Swiss Re.

www.sba.tax

Labels:

Comments

  1. Malcolm28 January 2023 at 12:26

    Penny James should have probably left a while back and someone new was and is needed to steer this ship in a new direction. She also had bad luck to be CEO in these hard times. Will be curious to see if Jon Greenwood will do better. It's not going to be easy.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Cloud Bookkeeping

US FED rate rise.

  The US Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they plan to resume increasing interest rates to control inflation in the world's biggest economy. During the June meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee reached a consensus to keep interest rates stable for the time being to evaluate whether further tightening of policy would be necessary. However, the majority of the committee anticipates that additional rate increases will be required in the future. The minutes of the meeting have recently been made public. According to the minutes, most participants believed maintaining the federal funds rate at 5 to 5.25 per cent was appropriate or acceptable, despite some individuals wanting to raise the acceleration due to slow progress in cooling inflation. Although Fed forecasts predicted a mild recession starting later in the year, policymakers faced challenges in interpreting data that showed a tight job market and only slight improvements in inflation. Additionally, officials gr...
Post a Comment
Read more

EU business slide.

  S&P Global’s flash eurozone composite purchasing managers’ index, a key gauge of business conditions for the manufacturing and services sector, fell 1 point to 47.1, figures showed yesterday. That is its lowest level since November 2020 and the fourth consecutive month below the crucial 50 mark separating growth from contraction. One of the few bright spots in the survey was that companies in all sectors reported a slight easing of cost pressures, price growth and supply chain constraints. However, prices charged for goods and services still rose at the sixth fastest rate since such data started in 2002. Jobs growth increased marginally from October but remained low compared with the past 18 months. Following a few months of falling price pressure in manufacturing and services, the October print shows an overall stabilisation said Jens Eisenschmidt, chief European economist at Morgan Stanley. However, German businesses, at the hub of Europe’s energy crisis, reported that manu...
1 comment
Read more

Tariffs on UK electric cars.

  The European Commission has confirmed that it will continue with its plan to impose tariffs on electric cars exported between the UK and EU starting next year. This is due to the "rules of origin" requirement that mandates EVs traded across the English Channel to have 60% of their battery and 45% of their parts sourced from the EU or UK or face a 10% tariff. A senior Commission official, Richard Szostak, recently informed parliamentarians from the UK and EU that the bloc's battery investment has significantly declined, making the tariffs necessary to encourage domestic production. In 2022, the EU's share of global investment in battery production shrank from 41% to only 2% after the US offered substantial subsidies through its Inflation Reduction Act. Starting in 2024, car manufacturers in the UK will need to have 22% of their sales come from zero-emission vehicles, which means they may need to import EVs from the continent to meet this requirement. If EU carmakers ...
Post a Comment
Read more