The admirable Engelhardt to leave Admiral with grown-up issues

When a child grows up, it leaves home. When a business grows up, its parent leaves home. Henry Engelhardt, co-founder and driving force behind insurer Admiral Group for 24 years, is to step down in a year. His monument is a FTSE 100 company that shook up the staid motor insurance market, but which is now struggling with the challenges maturity brings.

Anyone with the least interest in sales should study the American marketer for insights. Daytime TV ads featuring such mascots as a naval officer with a cheeky parrot showed how to build brands cheaply. After flotation in 2004, Mr Engelhardt's ebullient personality helped promote the stock to an adoring City fan base. Apt to compare results to a "snowball running like an express train" or a "baked Alaska", Mr Engelhardt modestly describes his career as "like hot-buttered toast - ordinary but at times delicious".

Admiral has maximised returns by basing itself in south Wales, selling on chunks of risk at good prices to reinsurers and reaping large returns from "ancillaries", including, in the past, referral fees from personal injury lawyers. The company prospered by selling cover to younger drivers who could not obtain it affordably from incumbents. The total shareholder return since the initial public offering has exceeded 800 per cent.

However, the stock has never recovered the heights reached in the summer of 2011. It has been held back by Admiral's scale, underwriting overcapacity and reforms to curb the merry-go-round of referral fees.

Moreover, Mr Engelhardt's talent for inventing spokesmodels faltered with Cara, the ditsy cartoon woman who promoted comparison website Confused.com. She was blown out of the water by the Russian meerkats of Comparethemarket.com, then axed in favour of Brian, a robot with a higher quotient of annoying memorability. Life is a harsh Darwinian struggle for cute financial services mascots.

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Admiral has notably failed to make profits from most of its overseas ventures. These include the US operation run by Kevin Chidwick, a former finance director once tipped to replace Mr Engelhardt. Instead, chief operating officer David Stevens will get the job. Mr Englehardt, 57, says he is stepping down to give younger colleagues a chance. But charity is required to describe Mr Stevens as one of these. He is 51, and may lack the radicalism needed to pull out of failed diversifications, particularly with his old boss on hand as a part-timer.

Bob bushwhacked

Another mechanical failure has stranded African explorer Bob Diamond at the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana*

"I'm unhappy your husband didn't fix my car properly last time," the ex-banker grumbled, sipping bush tea as Mr JLB Maketone laboured over his shiny Mercedes.

"But you drove into a termite mound," said chief detective Precious Ramotswe gently, "Perhaps you were going too fast? It could be the same with the censure vote at your African investment vehicle Atlas Mara. Maybe you were in such a hurry to do deals you did not notice the obstacle ahead."

"Jiminy Cricket!" the former Barclays boss exclaimed, "Just wait till I find out which investor voted against my reappointment to the board. I'm gonna add their name to the shortlist of people who've teed me off, alongside Sir Mervyn King, George Osborne and the entire British establishment."

"There could be many culprits, or perhaps none," said Mma Ramotswe, consulting the Bloomberg terminal she used for forensic accounting cases. "I deduce from the relative size of shareholdings that some small investors must have delegated voting to a proxy agency. This probably opposed your reappointment on the tick-box basis that founders should not sit on audit committees."

"That was fast, Mma," enthused assistant Grace Makutsi, "Normally, readers of the heartwarming tales in which you feature solve your cases many pages before you do."

"You know, this bush tea has lifted my spirits," Mr Diamond said. Shortly afterwards he was thrashing the Merc away across the potholes while Mr JLB Maketone wept silently in a corner.

Mma Ramotswe wondered whether to supply her advice for free. She reflected that Mr Diamond could afford to pay, even if Atlas shares had tanked since the IPO. She went inside and started typing an invoice.*Apologies to Alexander McCall Smith.

Clothes maketh the man

Navinder Sarao, the independent trader who is fighting US extradition attempts on legal aid, appears to have only one T-shirt for court appearances. What would big hedge fund managers wear, in the unlikely event that charges resulted from suspicions that some of them made similar alleged trades? Suits almost expensive as those worn by their lawyers, presumably.

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