Lloyds poaches its new boss from HSBC

The high-street lender has appointed Charlie Nunn, HSBC’s head of wealth management, to be its new CEO. He faces a towering in-tray. Matthew Partridge reports

Charlie Nunn
Charlie Nunn will not enjoy appearing before the Treasury select committee
(Image credit: © Alamy)

Lloyds Banking Group has “poached” HSBC’s Charlie Nunn to be its next CEO, replacing outgoing boss António Horta-Osório, “one of Britain’s best known executives”, say Harry Wilson and Stefania Spezzati on Bloomberg. This reinforces Horta-Osório’s strategy of making a “bigger push into managing money for individuals” in order to diversify the bank’s revenue: Nunn is HSBC’s head of wealth and personal banking.

Lloyds shouldn’t assume that boosting sales by expanding wealth management services is a surefire route to success, says Lex in the Financial Times. Even if it does become one of the top three providers in the UK, it will be “tough” to make a lot more money from it given that fees in the industry are in long-term decline and top-quality wealth managers “remain costly”. Meanwhile the bank will have to deal with the effects of Covid-19, which has wiped out “the income equivalent of 40% of the past year’s cost base”. Given these problems, “a recovery to pre-pandemic levels of business” may be the best it can hope for.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri