BoA veteran Jim O’Neil set for UKFI role
UKFI, the body set up to manage the taxpayer’s stakes in the banks, has welcomed Bank of America Merrill Lynch veteran Jim O’Neil as the latest in a long line of senior executives to parade through its revolving door.
O’Neil, who last year advised Lloyds Banking Group on its £22.5bn recapitalisation, will be doing the work of two of UKFI’s alumni, John Crompton and Tim Sykes, who both resigned earlier this year.
He will be paid a fairly generous public sector salary of £180,000 a year, though the figure is less than half of the combined £400,000 that was paid to his predecessors. O’Neil will also be eligible for a performance-related bonus, which UKFI said would be “a small fraction rather than a multiple” of salary and subject to deferral and clawback. However, he will receive no bonus at all until the government’s stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds are sold – an event which is likely to be a year away at the very least.
In the meantime, O’Neil’s role will involve planning the structure of the share divestments and engaging with the two banks as an active shareholder, pressing the management teams on issues such as risk, corporate governance and executive strategy.
Discussions over banking remuneration will continue to be led by UKFI’s chief executive Robin Budenberg, himself a former UBS banker.
UKFI has had its fair share of management upheaval since it was founded in 2008, in addition to the departures of Crompton and Sykes earlier this year.
RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton and Pearson’s Glen Moreno both held the chairmanship for a period before London & Continental Railways chair Sir David Cooksey took up the role. And former chief executive John Kingman, the Treasury mandarin, left the body to join Rothschild in July 2009 after scarcely half a year in charge.
O’Neil has also advised on a number of recent high-profile capital markets deals, including the €1.1bn (£934m) subsidiary IPO of Delta Lloyd from insurer Aviva, a $1.6bn (£1.05bn) share placement for National Australia bank and rights issues for Swedbank and Nordea.