Virgin Money begins the search for a new chairman
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Virgin Money today announced that its chairman, Jim Pettigrew, will be stepping down from his role.
Pettigrew will retire in September 2021 – when his tenure on the board will hit the new nine-year limit for chairmen.
Virgin Money said that Pettigrew’s departure is “in line with the board succession plan and good corporate governance practice”.
The board said it had started the search process to allow time to identify a successor and ensure an orderly handover.
Pettigrew is a veteran of the City after starting his career at Sedgwick in 1988. He was finance director at Icap and Ashmore before serving as chief executive at CMC Markets between 2007 and 2009.
He was previously chairman of CYBG which bought Virgin Money in 2018 for £1.7bn to create Britain’s sixth-largest lender.
CYBG then adopted the Virgin Money name in a rebranding exercise last October as the bank announced its intention to “disrupt the status quo”.
But in its first set of results since the merger in November, Virgin Money posted a £194m loss and suspended its dividend. It blamed payment protection insurance (PPI) charges and the cost of the merger.
Shares rose six per cent to 176.9p following the announcement.
Colin Jackson, financial analyst at Goodbody, said the share price rise was likely prompted by the possibility of the Bank of England cutting interest rates later this month.
He said: “Banks are up across the board but Virgin Money is leading the way… It could potentially be linked to market expectations for interest rates.”
However, strong UK economy growth for January – released this morning – has weakened the case for an interest rate cut.
Read more: UK economy hits 16-month high to hurt chance of interest rate cut
Last month Barclays analysts shifted Virgin Money’s stock from equal weight to underweight due to due to weak earnings and high growth in the amount of unsecured personal loans on its books.
Barclays warned that it expects weaker 2020 income from Virgin Money and another year of almost zero dividends.
A pay row could erupt at Virgin Money’s annual meeting next week after Institutional Shareholder Services urged investors to vote against the remuneration report.