By Max Colchester
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, who was praised for slimming RBS down following
its taxpayer bailout, decided to leave after failing to agree with
management over how to execute the bank's strategy to cut down 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.
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 was one of the few top RBS executives to
be granted a bonus after successfully managing down RBS's so-called
bad bank last year. In February the bank 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.
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
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