Former boss of B&Q owner to chair Barclays UK operations

Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) has named Sir Ian Cheshire, the former boss of B&Q owner Kingfisher (Frankfurt: 812861 - news) , as chairman-designate of its new ring-fenced UK operations.

The announcement comes after Sky News first revealed that the appointment was about to be announced after being approved by the Prudential Regulation Authority, the banking watchdog.

Sir Ian will also become a non-executive director on the Barclays board from April.

As chairman of Barclays UK, he will oversee a business comprising the group's high street branch network in Britain, as well as its business banking and Barclaycard operations in its home market.

With (Other OTC: WWTH - news) roughly 22 million retail customers and almost one million business banking clients, it will be one of the largest UK-based lenders, and will be run by Ashok Vaswani, its chief executive.

Most of Barclays' international and investment banking activities will sit within a new non-ring-fenced entity run by Tim Throsby, a former JP Morgan executive.

The two parts of the business will, in accordance with the post-crisis framework proposed by Sir John Vickers in 2011, have separate funding regimes, allowing the retail bank to continue functioning even if the non-ring-fenced lender were to become insolvent.

John McFarlane, chairman of the wider Barclays group, welcomed Sir Ian's appointment.

He said: "He brings an excellent track record of success as both a chief executive and chairman and broad experience as a non-executive director."

Confirmation of the appointment comes four days after Barclays announced a rise in full-year profits alongside a modest cut in the bank's bonus pool for staff.

Shareholders have been forced to swallow a halving of the bank's dividend as Barclays completes a restructuring which has taken several years.

Sir Ian was identified as the preferred candidate to chair Barclays UK in the autumn of last year.

He is one of Britain's best-known businessmen, chairing the department store chain Debenhams (Frankfurt: D2T.F - news) and acting as the Government's lead non-executive director in Whitehall.

Some media outlets raised concerns about his appointment to lead Barclays UK because he was on the board of Bradford & Bingley, the high street mortgage lender bailed out by taxpayers during the 2008 financial crisis.

Sir Ian was a non-executive on the board of B&B for several years before a freeze in wholesale funding markets led it, like others, to fall into the arms of the state.

The Government is now close to completing a sale of B&B's £12bn loan book.

Sources said the interview process that Sir Ian had undergone with the PRA had been rigorous but that the regulator had "full confidence" in him.