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Time running out for Peter Sands at Standard Chartered | Time running out for Peter Sands at Standard Chartered |
(about 4 hours later) | |
When Standard Chartered's popular finance director Richard Meddings left early this year Peter Sands, the chief executive, made a fulsome, gracious, speech. | |
No one from the top of the bank was fooled, however. They knew that for months Sands and Meddings had been clashing and they had barely been on cordial terms. | |
These are febrile days at the top of what was once one of Britain’s most successful banks. | |
Today’s profit fall, accompanied by a plunging share price, may be explained away by Sands. The reality, however, is that the latest woe will hasten a move against him that was always likely in 2015. | Today’s profit fall, accompanied by a plunging share price, may be explained away by Sands. The reality, however, is that the latest woe will hasten a move against him that was always likely in 2015. |
Sir John Peace, the chairman, no longer has a cushion. | |
Shareholders, led by Temasek and Aberdeen Asset Management, are unlikely to give Sands any more time. | |
Sands’ opponents never have been able to abide his intellectualising; his preaching about the need for regulatory reform; the fact — did they not know it? — that he’d helped the Government to rescue the other banks. | Sands’ opponents never have been able to abide his intellectualising; his preaching about the need for regulatory reform; the fact — did they not know it? — that he’d helped the Government to rescue the other banks. |
Much of the hostility, to be fair, stemmed from Sands not being one of them; he hailed from McKinsey and was never a “roll up your sleeves”, “work your way to the top” banker. | Much of the hostility, to be fair, stemmed from Sands not being one of them; he hailed from McKinsey and was never a “roll up your sleeves”, “work your way to the top” banker. |
They point to Standard Chartered’s wholesale business making huge plays that may not be recovered (like a $1 billion loan to Samin Tan, the Indonesian investor in mining company Bumi); its mishandling of the New York regulator, with the bank handed a $340 million fine out of proportion to the offence; the forced loss of thousands of small to medium-sized business customers in the UAE as part of that same money-laundering fallout; the bank’s exposure to China, and a rise in Chinese interest rates. Then there are questions about Sands’ management style. | They point to Standard Chartered’s wholesale business making huge plays that may not be recovered (like a $1 billion loan to Samin Tan, the Indonesian investor in mining company Bumi); its mishandling of the New York regulator, with the bank handed a $340 million fine out of proportion to the offence; the forced loss of thousands of small to medium-sized business customers in the UAE as part of that same money-laundering fallout; the bank’s exposure to China, and a rise in Chinese interest rates. Then there are questions about Sands’ management style. |
When the shares were 1950p — as they were, let us not forget, in late 2010 — Sands could do no wrong. But now they are under 1000p, it’s no longer if but when he goes. | When the shares were 1950p — as they were, let us not forget, in late 2010 — Sands could do no wrong. But now they are under 1000p, it’s no longer if but when he goes. |
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