Credit Suisse is proposing the long-standing boss of Britain's Lloyd's Bank as its next chairman.
The Swiss bank will ask shareholders to back Antonio Horta-Osório as its next chairman in April, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The move culminates months of speculation about who would replace long-standing overseer Urs Rohner.
Horta-Osório is a 56-year-old Portuguese banker who has run U.K. retail lender Lloyds since 2011. He spent the bulk of his career at Santander, including in Portugal before moving to its British arm. Horta-Osório's departure from Lloyds next year was disclosed in July.
Veteran Retail Bank Executive
The Lloyds boss is a somewhat surprising choice because he has spent the majority of his career in retail banking, and not wealth management or investment banking, nor is he Swiss. Horta-Osório began his career in capital markets at Citigroup and worked for Goldman Sachs in corporate finance, from 1991 to 1993.
His executive career took off at Santander, which sent him to Brazil as well as to the U.K., where he ran Abbey for the Spanish bank. Lloyds hired him as CEO nine years ago, the same year Rohner took over the board at Credit Suisse.
Respected, Despite Blemishes
Lloyds was hit hard by the financial crisis, and forced to accept a government bailout. It didn't fully return to private ownership until 2017, following several strategic reviews.
A widely-respected executive in the U.K., Horta-Osório's tenure was marred by a few blemishes: he was criticized for being the highest-paid CEO of a FTSE-listed company at a time when Lloyds was cutting jobs and closing branches. Four years ago, he apologized to the bank's employees over an extramarital affair.
More to follow
