(by Sarah Veysey and Peta Miller)

A London-based investment company is seeking to consolidate several smaller Lloyd’s of London companies into a single, publicly traded entity.

Michael Wade, chief executive of Rostrum Group, said that he has established Capital Insurance Holdings and the company will be listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market in the next several weeks.

Mr. Wade said he hopes to attract £125 million ($232.5 million) from institutional investors and that he already has a commitment from Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to take a 25% stake, a figure Berkshire confirmed.

These funds would be used to acquire and capitalize Euclidian Group, a Lloyd’s of London company that currently is supported with capital from Berkshire. Mr. Wade is a nonexecutive chairman of Euclidian.

CIH would then seek to attract the investor owners of the smaller listed Lloyd’s companies—those with average market capitalization of £133 million ($247.4 million)—into the group, Mr. Wade said. This would be done on a share-for-share merger basis, consolidating the companies into a single listed entity, he noted.

The aim is to “create a quoted company that will have visibility (and) critical mass,” according a CIH spokeswoman. In addition, the consolidation would reduce the cost of listing for these smaller companies, without interfering with their individual brands or underwriting, she said.

CIH has not yet approached its target companies but intends to do so within two weeks of listing, Mr. Wade said.

A Lloyd’s spokeswoman declined to comment other than to say that Lloyd’s had received no application regarding CIH.

Lloyd’s market sources said they were doubtful that listed companies would be keen to join such a venture because, although they would retain underwriting independence, a poor underwriting decision by one member could affect the share price of the entire group.