New UK lender Shawbrook hires top Santander executive as CEO

By Roshni Menon and Matt Scuffham (Reuters) - Newly listed British bank Shawbrook appointed as chief executive Steve Pateman, the head of UK banking at Santander who was last year passed over in the appointment of a chief executive at the Spanish lender's British arm. Pateman will take the position in January 2016, replacing Richard Pyman who is stepping down following a period of leave due to illness. Chairman Iain Cornish said on Friday the appointment was a coup for the bank, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in April and is in the FTSE 250 index of mid-sized stocks. "Steve is someone who's got the mentality of a challenger bank and now he can lead a challenger bank himself. So I think he was instinctively attracted to the role," Cornish told Reuters in an interview. Shawbrook, which focuses on lending to small businesses, is one of several banks to emerge since the financial crisis, as the government and customers sought alternatives to Britain's "Big Five" of Lloyds, HSBC, RBS, Barclays and Santander UK. Pateman runs Santander UK's corporate, commercial, business and retail banking operations and wealth management divisions, and is responsible for annual revenue of 5 billion pounds, Shawbrook said. Before joining Santander, he had worked with RBS for eight years. The executive had been a candidate to become CEO of Santander UK after Ana Botin left the role last year to become chairwoman of Santander Group following the death of her father of Emiliano. However, he lost out to former Royal Bank of Scotland executive Nathan Bostock. Sources say he retained an ambition to run his own bank despite that setback. "(Pateman's) name rose to the top very quickly, but we spoke to a few people from all sorts of different backgrounds from the pre-eminent names," Cornish said. Shawbrook, which provides commercial mortgages, asset finance, and consumer lending services, reported a 38 percent increase in its loan book in the first half of the year. Shares in Shawbrook were unchanged at 1040 GMT. The stock has gained about 7.5 percent since being listed in April. (Additional reporting by Steve Slater in London; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi and David Holmes)