Lloyds Bank hunting for a new chief executive

Lloyds Bank is hunting for a chief executive after Antonio Horta-Osorio said he would step down. 

Scheduled for next year, his departure – after almost a decade at the helm – was announced alongside the appointment of former government advisor Robin Budenberg as chairman to replace Lord Blackwell. 

The City has already started placing bets on Horta-Osorio’s successor with Alison Brittain, chief executive of Premier Inn-owner Whitbread and formerly a senior banker at Santander, squarely in the frame. 

William Chalmers, chief financial officer at Lloyds, is also thought to be in the running, along with its head of retail banking Vim Maru and commercial bank boss David Oldfield. 

Rumours had been circulating for some time that Lisbon-born Horta-Osorio would soon be leaving Britain’s largest mortgage lender. 

The 56-year-old had overseen two phases of Lloyds’ strategic review, and the third was coming to an end this year. 

In a memo to staff yesterday, he said: ‘This has, quite simply, been the job of a lifetime and it has been an honour to work alongside all of you on the remarkable transformation we will have achieved together.’ 

Fahed Kunwar, an analyst at Redburn, said ‘his departure leaves a large vacuum’ at the bank. Rohith Chandra-Rajan, an analyst at Bank of America, said the departure of both Horta-Osorio and Blackwell in the same year ‘increases the likelihood of a more radical strategic response to a challenging banking environment’. 

Budenberg advised the Government on its bank bailouts in 2008, and is chairman of investment bank Centerview Partners and the Crown Estate. Whoever joins him as chief executive will face a challenge. Lloyds must, in the short term, deal with the economic slump caused by Covid-19. 

In the longer term, its profits are likely to be squeezed by lower interest rates, as the Bank of England keeps its base rate low to encourage borrowing and spending.