This man is a banker. He is giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee. He has just admitted he is being paid £60,000 a month to provide consultancy to Lloyds Bank. His name is Andy Hornby, ex boss of HBOS.
I am a customer of Lloyds Bank. I am horrified. I don't blame him - but I do blame Lloyds Bank. I can think of no justification for this level of remuneration to a consultant. He gave no indication of how long each month he spends working for Lloyds, but I doubt whether it is worth it bearing in mind he presided over the failure of HBOS.
I don't believe in supporting the current witchhunt against all bankers. The many are paying for the mistakes of a few. But some of their remuneration payments are just unsupportable, and this is one of them.
29 comments:
Too damn right. I'd be happy with £60,000 per annum.
Greedy barsteward!
Keeps you silent about the Bank and the board. Is this the real reason?
If you feel that bad, become a shareholder, go to the AGM and have your say.
Unless he's breaking the law, I really can't see the problem. It's not like he's gaming / fiddling his expenses.
£60K a month?
So what?
Tell us how much you earn and I'll invite opinion on my blog if you like Iain.
But apparently he's lost more than he's earned - hmm - I got confused by that too.
I was watching C-Span over the weekend (been on e-bay but apparently there's no lives for sale at the moment) and a Congressman just absolutely laid into a panel of 2 bankers and 2 regulators. It was brutal - absolutely brutal.
Whereas this committee is pants. How can directors over talk politicians? I thought politicians were professional gobby shites. (well, amateur maybe)
Only 60k a month? He's in the wrong job he should be a West Ham player, they're probably on more than that a week. ;-)
When's Brown going to apologise then? It happened on his watch and he ignored regulation warnings from the EU and IMF for years.
As an original Bank of Scotland customer I'm also pretty p'd off at Hornby and the Halifax Mafia who's reckless management has virtually destroyed the Bank of Scotland. The old board may not have been high flyers but they did there job well enough without bringing the bank down.
You've got an account with the. You're not happy with them.
Then get off your backside and change banks.
It's called voting with your feet.
"Unless he's breaking the law, I really can't see the problem. It's not like he's gaming / fiddling his expenses."
Indeed. If I sat on the board, I'd pay him double that if he stood up in Parliament, dropped his trousers and mooned the whole useless, trough-swilling bunch of them....
Venality is not the sole province of Bankers, is it? This 'system' of 'rewards' has been in existence for decades. What is wrong here is the regulation of banks and bankers. These guys would not do it if they were properly controlled, but this government has been blinded by the glitz and glamour of money.
In many ways those who have been brought up with old money are just infinitely less gullible. Labour politicians are useless when it comes down to cash - except at chiselling some for themselves. But then, witness La Smith etc etc, they're not even very good at that.
I want to be enraged about the activities of the bankers but they seem such decent human beings compared to the MPs. I wish one of the bankers would turn the question round and ask the pig ignorant MPs what qualifications they have to sit on the Treasury Committee.
I have to agree with Dick the Prick the Commons committee is a pale imitation (if it can even be called that) of what is going on in Congress at the moment, totally toothless and redundant.
We should also ask what will the outcome of these 'hearings' will be, a report that will go unread by the government and recommendations that will be ignored by all but a few.
It goes without saying that something has to change in the way bankers remunerations are structured, but is this any different that what went on in the 1980s.
Yes it was a time of boom, and yes when that doom turned to bust bonuses would have been slashed, but its this what has led in part to where we are now. The constant boom followed by huge payments to bankers and banks consultants?
I'm in two minds on this.
Lloyds took-over HBOS. Given the size and risk exposure on the HBOS books, for a private company, £60K per month is a relatively small price to pay (as a risk mitigation fee) the person who knows where the skeletons are.
Since Lloyds is now part state-owned - then that is a problem and the government should wield it's influence as a shareholder.
The government at time of the bailout should have put some conditional strings in place. Contractually forcing the availability of key players for a certain time period at fair prices.
I don't blame the individual. The government seem to have sprayed our cash at the banks unconditionally.
Stinks of jobs for the boys, doesn't it?
"I'm sorry Andy, you've royally buggered this one up, but tell you what, we'll get our chums over at Lloyds to take you on as a consultant, hey? You know, fall on your sword here, but we'll sort you out."
You are only a customer Iain. What has it got to do with you?
If he were working full-time for Lloyds (which I accept he probably isn't), that's works out at about 3,000 per day. That's about what you'd pay for a mid-level manager from a top consulting firm. Given his knowledge of the business 60,000 per month doesn't seem too much to pay.
A new poll conducted by the ePolitix website has some interesting conclusions, and some food for thought for the Gordon Brown. http://whippedsenseless.co.uk/2009/02/people-blame-banks/
I've met this guy when I worked for HBOS until 2002.
Suffice to say, I wasn't overly impressed by him - his key skill seems to be surrounding himself with people who know what they're talking about, and selling yoghurts (ex ASDA).
The only thing I can think that he might be being paid this amount for is probably because he knows where the bodies are buried.
Note: this is not a statement of fact or perceived fact, merely opinion and thus is not actionable in a libellous manner.
Well at least this public humiliation of the bankers is diverting the media & us from addressing the real problems.
As set out by Ed Balls - worst recession / depression for 100 years.
So he's on around £2,000 a day ... a Senior Management Consultant from Andersons or similar could easily cost this or more.
Where's the problem ?
surely the advice he is going to give will help to do to Lloyds what he did to HBOS ie bankrupt it?
Iain, you have no idea do you? These shits are everywhere. Once they are in the 'club' their mates always get them jobs because not to do so would condemn their own futures. My business is retail FS and we have been railing against this type of shuyster for years. Hornby is just another clever kid who gets to the top and messes up. The RBS blokey whose name presently escapes (probaby a Freudian response) is just another big ego merchant adventurer who gloried in making bigger and bigger deals. I have no time for him either.
I've worked for these sorts of people and most of them know well, f**k all really. They are just very good at getting into these jobs. Having enough knowledge and skill to talk a good game and win the confidence of their peers.
Myself and my business partner have been warning about the end game for this type of banking for years. And no-one listened. Espcially not the FSA. And why should they? What do we know? We are a micro business. Well, clearly a shed load more than the FSA and the banks. Why? Because (a) we have some common sense and (b) we've been doing this for a long time.
And that's another thing. The F S bloody A. What a bunch of useless f**kwits. Clearly you've never dealt with them directly. I have. I proved beyond doubt with one of their appatchiks in a series of lengthy telephone calls that something they were requiring us to do was impossibole and nonsensical and bad for the client. Their response? Do it our way or we'll shut you down. What can you do with a ssystem like that. Nazism is what it is. BTW the particular requirement was withdrawn not long after. Tossers
And who gets to head up the FSA. the same sort of fellow traveller nearly men. Blokes like John Tiner, who once he realised that the FSA had cocked up bigtime and the poo was coming down the pipe oiled himself out into a nice cushy number in a PE fund with his banker mates.
Meanwhile at the sharp end, on the street as it were, blokes like us are trying to help clients understand how shits like these and other idiots with one eye and born in Scotland can create a supervision system (system? Hah!) so dysfunctional that it positively encourages reckless banking behaviour.
If I'd written down and published 25% of what I'd seen you would still not believe it.
PS many of the foot soldiers in the FSA are Good Blokes - it's just that they are wasted in non-jobs. Release them into private business to create wealth.
He knows where the skeletons are buried.
And it is quite frankly chicken feed. I have been paid £650 an hour / £5,000 a day / £25,000 a week by companies for months on end as a financial consultant.
"I can think of no justification for this level of remuneration to a consultant."
Yes you can, Iain - it is called 'silence'...
basementcat said...
Stinks of jobs for the boys, doesn't it?
"I'm sorry Andy, you've royally buggered this one up, but tell you what, we'll get our chums over at Lloyds to take you on as a consultant, hey? You know, fall on your sword here, but we'll sort you out."
This is now how the public sector works too. Heads of authorities, quangos etc leave and get replaced, but get contracted back as consultants. It is an utter complete waste of taxpayer's money.
There would be a good reason why someone leaves a post and the replacement ought to not need outside help from their predecessor.
Depends what he's providing for them and whether he's the only one that can do it surely? And what his next best payday opportunity is. They have to match that if they want him.
Obviously it's shocking. But there's markets for you.
And there are plenty of management consultants and IT contractors whose rates are £2000, £3000 and more.
PS Ed Balls is being misquoted I think. Worst banking crisis is what he was talking about. Not worst recession etc. Numb brain media did to Darling too.
Though I'm not suggesting Balls shouldn't have been more careful.
The only person who deserves 60k a WEEK is my hero David Beckham.
I don't begrudge Becks a single penny.
;)
I deal with everyone that dies on this planet and even I don't get £60k a month!
Interestingly he has no banking qualifications, came from ASDA with marketing skills
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