L&G to kick off hunt for successor to Kingman
Directors of L&G have begun talking to headhunters about a process that will
conclude with Sir John Kingman stepping down as chairman of the FTSE-100 group
next year, Sky News learns.
By Mark Kleinman, City editor
Saturday 8 February 2025 10:21, UK
Legal & General (L&G), the FTSE-100 insurance and asset management group, is
preparing to kick off a search for a successor to chairman Sir John Kingman.
Sky News has learnt that the company, which this week announced a major
corporate deal in the US, is close to appointing headhunters to oversee the
appointment process.
City sources said this weekend that Sir John was likely to step down from the
L&G board and retire as chairman at its annual meeting next year.
That timetable will give the company, which will mark its bicentenary in just
over a decade, about 15 months to identify and appoint its next chair.
It was unclear on Saturday whether any of L&G’s existing non-executive directors
would be in contention for the role.
Sir John has become one of the City’s most prominent figures over the last
decade, having been a surprise appointment in 2016 to replace interim chair Rudy
Markham.
Since then, he has become chairman of Barclays’ UK ring-fenced bank subsidiary,
which replaced an earlier role he held as chairman of Tesco Bank.
Money blog: Exactly how much more it costs being single revealed
Billions for ‘unproven’ carbon capture technology will have ‘very significant’
impact on energy bills, MPs warn
Interest rate cut – but economic growth forecast slashed in blow to chancellor
He also presided over a landmark review of audit regulation in the UK in the
aftermath of accounting scandals at companies such as BHS and Carillion.
Prior to his career in business, Sir John was a long-serving Whitehall mandarin,
playing a leading role to Britain’s response to the 2008 financial crisis.
Following the bailouts of Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland – now
NatWest Group – he was named the first chief executive of UK Financial
Investments, the agency set up to manage the taxpayer’s bank stakes.
While in that role, he oversaw the effective defenestration of Sir Victor Blank
as Lloyds’ chair – a move which stunned the City.
Following that, he moved to Rothschild as an investment banker.
For most of Sir John’s tenure as L&G chair, the company was run by Sir Nigel
Wilson, who oversaw a big push by the company into financing urban regeneration
projects across the UK, and expanding its pension risk transfer business.
Sir Nigel’s successor, the former HSBC and Santander executive Antonio Simoes,
has announced a number of efforts to slim down the group’s operations.
He sold Cala Homes last year for £1.4bn, and on Friday announced the sale of
L&G’s US insurance business to its partner, Japan’s Meiji Yasuda, for $2.3bn.
As part of the deal, Meiji Yasuda will also acquire a 5% stake in the FTSE-100
group.
L&G said it would expand its share buyback programme by £1bn once the deal
closes.
L&G said in December when it announced a series of board changes that Henrietta
Baldock, who was named senior independent director-designate, would “lead the
Board succession process for the Chair”.
It has not made a public announcement about the timing of the recruitment
process to replace Sir John.
On Friday, shares in L&G closed about 1.2% higher at 241.7p, giving the company
a market capitalisation of £14.24bn.
An L&G spokesperson declined to comment further.
