Barclays appoints Ian Cheshire to chair UK retail bank

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays said on Monday that it had appointed Ian Cheshire, the former chief executive of Kingfisher Plc , to chair its ring-fenced UK retail business. Cheshire, currently the chairman of Debenhams, the department store chain, will take up the new role with Barclays at the beginning of April. "I am very much looking forward to joining the Barclays Boards and to supporting all our colleagues," Cheshire said in the statement. Britain's ring-fencing rules aim to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, when banks' bad bets in wholesale financial markets put ordinary depositors' cash at risk, and led to big taxpayer-funded bailouts. Cheshire had previously served on the board of Bradford & Bingley, that was nationalised during the financial crisis because of its heavy exposure to the slumping British housing market. (Reporting By Andrew MacAskill)