RBS chucks out last of old guard

07 May 2009

The Royal Bank of Scotland's new management has completed the clearing out of the executive members of the board who presided over the takeover of Dutch rival ABN Amro and the subsequent near-collapse of the Edinburgh-based bank last year, by naming a replacement for Gordon Pell, who will retire next year on an annual pension of at least £500,000.

Pell, 59, had been asked to stay on by new chief executive Stephen Hester, who succeeded Sir Fred Goodwin as RBS chief executive last November, shortly after the government was forced to bail out RBS with £20 billion.

Brian Hartzer, who is currently a senior executive at the Australasian bank ANZ, is to join RBS in order to take on Pell's duties as head of its retail banking and wealth management businesses.

Hartzer will join the bank's executive committee rather than the main board, and his appointment completes the line-up of fresh RBS faces. All nine members of the committee have been appointed in the past 12 months, seven of them since October, when the bank was rescued by the taxpayer.

The main board has also been overhauled. Pell is the last of the executive team who worked for former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin to leave. Also gone are former chairman Sir Tom ­McKillop; Johnny Cameron, who used to run the troubled global markets arm; and Mark Fisher, an integration expert who has left for Lloyds Banking Group.

The departure of finance director Guy Whittaker, for whom a replacement is being sought, was announced this week. Seven non-executive directors have also departed this year.