Seeing Equitable through doze-tinted glasses

Poor old Equitable Life. Even its friends are tired of it. Having waited two-and-a-half years for the publication of the Penrose Report into what went wrong at the troubled insurer, Lovells, Equitable’s lawyers, couldn’t rustle up much enthusiasm. The law firm’s e-mail announcement of a conference call given by Equitable chief executive Charles Thomson to respond to the report (besides failing to make use of the “Bcc” function) was apparently from “zzzEquitable Life”. Not just the regulators caught napping, then.