Leigh-Pemberton To Lead Taxpayer Banks Body

The son of a former governor of the Bank of England will on Monday be appointed as the new chief executive of the body which manages the taxpayer's stakes in Britain’s bailed-out banks.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that James Leigh-Pemberton, a senior executive at Credit Suisse in the UK, will be appointed as the head of UK Financial Investments (UKFI).

The appointment will come at a crucial time as George Osborne, the Chancellor, prepares to offload the first chunk of the Government’s 39% stake in Lloyds Banking Group in the coming days.

Mr Leigh-Pemberton, the son of Robin Leigh-Pemberton, who headed the Bank of England for a decade from 1983, will replace another career investment banker, Jim O’Neil, who is returning to the private sector.

As the boss of UKFI, Mr Leigh-Pemberton will also oversee the fate of the taxpayer’s much larger stake in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Mr Osborne is undertaking a review of whether RBS should be broken up in an attempt to stimulate its lending to British companies.

Mr Leigh-Pemberton will become UKFI’s fourth chief executive since it was established in 2009, following John Kingman, now a senior Treasury official; Robin Budenberg, UKFI’s current chairman; and Mr O’Neil, who is leaving to rejoin Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

UKFI and Mr Leigh-Pemberton both refused to comment.