The FT has reported:
Sir Win Bischoff, the veteran British banker, is to become the new chairman of Lloyds Banking Group from September.
The 67-year-old former chairman of Citigroup will take over from Sir Victor Blank who decided to step aside after being blamed by investors for the disastrous takeover of HBOS by Lloyds.
Sir Win’s appointment, which was first revealed in the Financial Times, comes despite negative feedback from some institutional investors who are unhappy with his handling of Citigroup.
I despair. This man has helped destroy banks. Citigroup is now 34% state owned. He represents the very worst of the banking culture, overseeing the madness of parts of the City from 1995 on at Schroder's and then Citi, and now we appoint him to a nationalised bank where he will ensure that the UK economy’s madness of ensuring death imposed by a thousand bankers continues as the prevailing norm.
Of course we should have anticipated it — UKFI that controls Lloyds supposedly on behalf of the UK government, but actually on behalf of a select group of self appointed bankers — is dominated by ex US bank personnel — so Sir Win is one of their own — but this simply demonstrates the sheer folly of putting these people in charge in the first place.
I hate to say the lunatics have taken over the asylum — it’s not usually fair to those who suffer severe mental illness or who in the past were incarcerated through no fault of their own — but in this case I think it appropriate.
Why is it we seem to have only one politician of stature (Vince Cable) able to stand up to the fools in the City these days. Because fools they are. Let me remind you what LSE professors said was the cause of the Crisis in their letter to the Queen. They said it was caused by:
a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people
and a
psychology of denial
plus
"financial wizards" managed to convince themselves and the world's politicians that they had found clever ways to spread risk throughout financial markets - whereas "it is difficult to recall a greater example of wishful thinking combined with hubris".
Win Bischoff suffered all such complaints. And he’s been put back in charge.
That’s a good definition of madness.
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[…] put Win Bischoff in charge […]
It’s insane – like putting Oliver Reed in charge of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The Government should be making sure that idiots like this never go anywhere near a major financial institution again. Really the bankers should be totally discredited and on the back foot – instead they are being allowed to carry on as if nothing’s gone wrong with the financial system.
Your average Big Brother contestant would probably do a better job of managing Lloyds Group than Bischoff. (Not that I’m advocating that as a policy, but it couldn’t be any worse than what’s happening at the moment).