John Nelson, the chairman of Lloyd’s of London has just ticked off a must-do item on his list for 2014 open a branch in Beijing.
The Chinese government granted Lloyd’s, the insurance market, a Beijing branch licence as part of a series of deals following a trade summit between Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne and China’s vice premier Ma Kai on September 12.
The new Beijing branch is part of Lloyd’s expansion into emerging markets and efforts to diversify its sources of capital, as set out in its roadmap to 2025 published more than two years ago.
“As China industrialises...