By David Wighton
LONDON-- Bill Winters, a longtime investment banker at J.P.
Morgan Chase & Co., hasn't worked in Asia or Africa. He lacks
experience in commercial or retail banking. He's never run a
bank.
Yet his appointment Thursday to become the next chief executive
of Standard Chartered PLC, the struggling emerging-markets-focused
commercial bank, drew rave reviews from investors and fellow
bankers. Standard Chartered's shares rose more than 4% on the news
that the American is replacing longtime CEO Peter Sands and that
four other members of the bank's board are exiting.
One large shareholder said that there was "no superman" in the
world who ticked every single box for the job. Mr. Winters had an
excellent reputation for building good teams and would likely bring
in executives "to cater to the areas where he has a perceived
weakness", the investor said. Further boosting Mr. Winters's
resume, he was a candidate for the top jobs at UBS AG, Barclays PLC
and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, according to people familiar
with the matter.
A senior British banker who knows Mr. Winters and Standard
Chartered well said the lack of direct experience of Asia or retail
banking wouldn't be a big impediment to him doing a good job at
Standard Chartered. "The things that really need fixing are
culture, controls, costs and the wholesale bank," the banker said.
"And on those Bill has a fantastic track record." Some Standard
Chartered executives echoed that sentiment, saying they were
pleasantly surprised by Mr. Winters's arrival.
An Anglophile who has lived in London for 23 years, Mr. Winters
has built a reputation as a savvy markets practitioner and a
conservative risk manager. Obsessed about J.P. Morgan's
vulnerability to bad loans, he would boast about how little the
bank lent, rather than how much.
During the Russian debt crisis in the late 1990s, this approach
helped limit J.P. Morgan's losses. Mr. Winters had moved to London
in 1992 as the head of European fixed income and in 2004 was
promoted to co-chief executive of J.P. Morgan's investment bank.
His stewardship of the investment bank was viewed as one of the
reasons that J.P. Morgan Chase weathered the financial crisis
better than many of its rivals. He played a central role in the
acquisition and integration of ailing investment bank Bear Stearns
in early 2008.
Mr. Winters, who is now 53, came to be regarded as a strong
contender to eventually succeed James Dimon as the overall bank's
CEO. But Mr. Winters was abruptly ousted in 2009. He told friends
that one reason Mr. Dimon sacked him was that Mr. Winters did not
believe in the universal-banking model, where institutions combined
large investment banking operations with big retail banks.
Former colleagues say Mr. Winters can at times be blunt and
hot-tempered. But he also has a lighter side. In a promotional
video last year for London's Young Vic theater, of which Mr.
Winters is on the board, the banker participated in a skit that
featured him and other financiers ripping open their shirts and
belting out a show tune.
After leaving J.P. Morgan, Mr. Winters was considered for a
number of bank CEO jobs, including roles at UBS, Barclays and Royal
Bank of Scotland Group PLC, according to people familiar with the
matter. Instead he set up an asset-management business, Renshaw
Bay, to buy assets that were expected to be sold by downsizing
banks. But the opportunities were scarcer than expected, prompting
renewed speculation that Mr. Winters might be tempted to take a big
bank job.
His standing in the U.K. was enhanced by his role as a member of
the Independent Commission on Banking that, in 2011, advised the
government to force British banks to ring-fence their retail
operations from their investment banking businesses.
Highly regarded in the U.K. political and regulatory
establishment, Mr. Winters cuts a very different figure from the
last American investment banker to head a British bank, the more
swashbuckling Bob Diamond. And Standard Chartered shareholders will
certainly be hoping that Mr. Winters meets a different fate. Mr.
Diamond was ousted as chief executive of Barclays PLC in 2012 under
pressure from regulators.
Write to David Wighton at david.wighton@wsj.com
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