Lloyds Banking Group chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio is to step down next year after 10 years in charge that has seen him turn around its fortunes to take it out of government ownership, after former UBS investment banker Robin Budenberg joins the UK bank as chairman.
Lloyds said on Monday Budenberg will join on October 1 and take over as chair in early 2021. The bank said in October that current chair Norman Blackwell intended to retire before its 2021 AGM.
Lloyds said Horta-Osorio told the bank of his plans to leave at the end of June 2021 now it has fixed its chairman succession.
Portuguese Horta-Osorio, 56, took over at Lloyds in March 2011 and led the bank's revival after it had struggled in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis. Lloyds had bought HBOS to become the biggest UK retail bank, but had to take a £21bn government bailout, which left the government with a 41% stake.
Horta-Osorio sold assets, narrowed the bank's focus and slashed costs, and Lloyds repaid the stake and returned fully to private hands in 2017. Lloyds' shares have slumped 50% this year, however, far steeper than the 32% fall by Europe's banking index, to halve its market value to £22bn, or US$27bn, ranking it as Europe's eighth biggest bank. Its shares were up 1% early on Monday.
Horta-Osorio previously worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and joined Santander in 1993, and from 2006 to 2010 he ran its UK bank until he was poached by Lloyds. He has been regularly linked with other top jobs in banking, or possibly a return to take an official position in Portugal.
Horta-Osorio said he will leave with mixed emotions. "I have been honoured to play my part in the transformation of large parts of our business," he said in a statement. "I know that when I leave the group next year, it has the strategic, operational and management strength to build further on its leading market position."
Budenberg had a long career at SG Warburg and then UBS from 1984 to 2009, which included advising the UK government on the recapitalisation of UK banks, including Lloyds, in 2008.
In 2009 he became chief executive of UK Financial Investments, the body that was in charge of running the government's stake in Lloyds, RBS and other banks. He became UKFI chairman and left the body in 2014 to become London chairman of Centerview Partners, the US advisory firm, and in 2016 he became chairman of The Crown Estate, which manages lands and holdings that is the sovereign's public estate.
He will step down from Centerview before joining Lloyds, but will continue as chairman of The Crown Estate.