QBE is keeping its powder dry over an article in Business Review Weekly suggested the Australian company is in big trouble. “We’ve had a lot of calls from concerned brokers since the magazine hit the streets, said QBE Australia CEO Raymond Jones. “We’re not happy.”

Not happy, but certainly relieved that no analysts have yet called the company to demand an update on its position. BRW suggested, among other matters, that QBE has reinsurance problems; poorly performing Lloyd’s syndicates; declining margins; is adding to its risk profile; has stretched too much with too many acquisitions; is being abandoned by its major shareholders and has a $1 billion Lloyd’s exposure.

“Yes, we’re pretty annoyed about it all,” Mr Jones said. “But the report has already been discredited in very harsh terms by Merrill Lynch and the other analysts.

“It doesn’t make any revelations that justify the cover headline of ‘a company under siege’. It got nine fundamental facts just on Lloyd’s wrong.”

Mr Jones said many brokers were “justifiably concerned” when they read the report, presumably because similar reports presaged the collapse of HIH last year. “That’s what makes us irritated,” Mr Jones said. “The report is fundamentally wrong and it has worried some people. That concern isn’t justified at all.”

Will BRW issue a retraction, or at least a clarification? Mr Jones admitted there have been discussions with Managing Editor Neil Shoebridge. But there’s no further comment on that for now.

QBE has so far been careful to handle the article sensitively, resisting the temptation to issue a stern public statement that would have done little more than get other media involved and spread the story further and wider.