If the Lloyd’s building had been designed “outside in” instead of “inside out”, the occupants would not be threatening to leave, and the Chinese insurer which bought the building this week for £260 million would have been obliged to pay £60 million more for the 27-year-old landmark designed by Lord (Richard) Rogers.

Lloyd’s of London chief executive Michael Ward said yesterday that members were fed up with bearing the high maintenance costs of the 290ft tower. He told Reuters: “There is a fundamental problem with this building. Everything is exposed to the elements, and that makes it very costly.”

Ward went further, raising the possibility of moving out in 2021, when a clause in the lease allows Lloyd’s to leave. “Of course we’d move,” he said. “To say never to anything would be absolutely daft. We have breaks in the lease, and any sensible person would look at what their options are.”

Lloyds’ dissatisfaction is well-known. The possibility of it leaving in eight years’ time — and saddling the owner with the ever-higher costs of maintaining a virtually unlettable Grade 1 listed building — is also well-known. That’s one reason it has taken German owner Commerz Real two years to sell.

Ping An is paying a little over 16 times Lloyds’ annual rent of £16 million to purchase the building. The “problem-free” price of most City office blocks at the moment is 20 times the annual rent. In other words, the price of a problem-free Lloyd’s would be £320 million, not £260 million.

China’s second-largest insurer controls assets worth $50 billion (£33 billion), and employs half a million agents. The group is close to the Chinese government. The New York Times said last November that relatives of former premier Wen Jiabao had become hugely rich after buying discounted shares in Ping An. Therefore Ping An is easily able to take the risk that will give it an annual return of 6.1% on its £260 million investment. The company may even have calculated that contributing tens of millions repairing “the outsides” might persuade Lloyd’s to stay on the inside, and therefore make the building worth £320 million.

Accolade for Rogers

Lloyd’s building architect Lord Rogers, 80, was today crowned New Londoner of the Year at the New London Architecture awards “in recognition of his illustrious career in architecture”.

More than 30 design awards were handed out in front of 700 guests at the annual NLA lunch at Guildhall. The ground is still being levelled on one winner in the office category — the US Embassy in Nine Elms.

Work on the cuboid structure designed by American architect Kieran Timberlake has yet to begin. Let’s hope the US State Department follow his plans very, very, closely.