By Max Colchester and David Wighton
The chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC's investment
bank, Rory Cullinan, will leave the lender next month after a
disagreement over the bank's strategy, the bank said in a statement
Monday.
Mr. Cullinan, an RBS veteran, decided to step down after falling
out with the bank's management, in particular its chief financial
officer, over how to execute a plan to cut back its corporate and
investment bank, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr.
Cullinan, who was only appointed to his new role last month, didn't
answer calls for comment. RBS said that he will leave the bank on
April 30 but declined to comment on the nature of the fallout or
make CFO Ewen Stevenson available for comment.
The departure is a blow for the lender, which is 80% owned by
the government, as it has lost a number of senior executives in
recent years. Mr. Cullinan, one of RBS's longest-serving
executives, was one of the lender's few top managers to be granted
a bonus after successfully winding down a large chunk of the
lender's so-called bad bank last year. In February, RBS said Mr.
Cullinan would be put in charge of scaling back its investment bank
to focus more on its U.K. client base.
RBS's plans include exiting corporate- and investment-banking
operations in about two dozen locations including Hong Kong and
Australia. The bank will retain only London, Stamford, Conn., and
Singapore for full-service sales and trading, which will mainly
serve Western European companies and financial firms.
Mr. Cullinan, who was a close ally of Stephen Hester, RBS's
previous chief executive officer, was recently criticized by
politicians after the Sun newspaper obtained social media messages
between him and his daughter, where he allegedly described his job
as boring. At the bank, Mr. Cullinan was known for his dry sense of
humor.
Chris Marks, CEO of Corporate & Institutional Banking, and
Mark Bailie, CEO of Capital Resolution, will now join the bank
Executive Committee as CO-CEOS of Corporate & Institutional
Banking, RBS said in a statement.
Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com and David
Wighton at david.wighton@wsj.com
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