Aahana Swrup
In ‘Steal,’ protagonist Zara Dunne’s place of work, Lochmill Capital, remains one of the most crucial storytelling pieces throughout the narrative. The finance firm is a pension investment fund that manages the pensions of private, corporate, and government organizations through market investments. As a result, billions of pounds are facilitated through the firm on a daily basis, making it an ideal target for a team of professional robbers. Thus, on a non-descript day, the robbers attack, taking the company hostage and forcing trade processors, Luke and Zara, as well as high-up executives, into making a 4 billion pound transaction.
What follows afterward is a tense police investigation, helmed by DCI Rhys Covac, who quickly realizes that outside involvement of the MI5 is planning on undermining his progress with the case. Consequently, as Zara’s involvement in the robbery comes into question, she throws her lot in with the detective to get to the bottom of the criminal mystery. Naturally, with Lochmill Capital as the place of the crime and its direct victim, the investment firm becomes a notable point of conversation in the story. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Lochmill Capital is a Fictional Element Employed to Strengthen the Show’s Themes
‘Steal’ is a largely fictional piece of work, which possesses no direct roots in reality. As a result, the inciting storyline of the robbery taking place in a pension investment fund remains confined within the premises of the show. In real life, there have been no identical instances of a coordinated armed robbery targeting any similar London-based investment funds. Additionally, there are no records of a financial company existing off-screen that shares the same name as the on-screen Lochmill Capital. Therefore, it seems like the company itself is also an entirely fictionalized element, created in service of the story. In the show, the investment firm operates on the familiar framework of companies that deal with pension funds. For the same reason, its involvement in the story’s thematic exploration of financial corruption remains seamless. The mastermind behind the robbery at Lochmill Capital specifically chose the company to create an overarching conversation among the masses.
They want to capture the attention of a wider audience, which is why an investment fund involved with a pension fund proves to be the ideal target. Since a pension fund represents the collective interests and benefits of the working-class population, rather than just one or two wealthy individuals, the four billion-pound theft becomes a more widely recognized concern. As a result, the mastermind attacks a monolith of public interest to shift their focus to another problem that concerns the larger population: the class and wealth divide in the contemporary world. On the other hand, the hierarchical and exploitative structure of the investment fund, where Zara’s lack of connections and resources forces her to remain in the lower rungs of the power structure, infuses another layer of social commentary on the story. As such, for the most part, despite maintaining fictional origins, the Lochmill Capital investment fund contributes to the realistic and socially relevant storytelling in ‘Steal.’
Read More: Is Steal a True Story? Is Zara Dunne Based on a Real Person?
