UK Financial Investments appoints Barclays banker to board

The government body that manages taxpayer stakes in bailed-out banks has appointed a former Barclays investment banker to its board, as part of a broader reshuffle ahead of its Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland share sales.

Jitesh Gadhia – a senior adviser to Blackstone Advisory Partners, who was previously a mergers and acquisitions banker at Barclays Capital – will join the board of UK Financial Investments next month.

Mr Gadhia, who has also worked at ABN Amro and Baring Brothers, will be joined by Marshall Bailey, who has spent 20 years at UBS, Royal Bank of Canada and State Street Bank, and by Jane Guyett, formerly chief operating officer at Bank of America’s global markets business. Both hold a number of other non-executive roles.

Their appointments come as UKFI prepares for the next instalment of the staggered sell down of the government’s 25 per cent stake in Lloyds. It has already sold two tranches of Lloyds shares – raising £7.4bn in total – and is expected to launch a third, larger, disposal later this year. It is expected to be a more complex sale process than the earlier two, as it is set to include an offering of shares for retail investors.

UKFI will also manage the eventual sale of the government’s 81 per cent stake in RBS, although that is not expected to start until at least next year.

Some banking reformers – such as Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chaired the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards – have called for UKFI to be disband, claiming it is a “fig leaf” to disguise government intervention in RBS.

They point to UKFI’s decision to change the way it voted on RBS bankers’ pay, back in April. It had originally intended to abstain on a vote to double the cap on pay awards for top staff. It then voted against the proposal after George Osborne, chancellor, expressed his opposition to it.

However, on Monday, James Leigh-Pemberton – the veteran dealmaker who took over the helm of UKFI last September, just before the first Lloyds sale – said the three new board members would “bring the skills and expertise to help UKFI continue in the successful execution of its mandate”.

“The board will benefit from the breadth of their knowledge of capital markets and financial institutions, and their experience as non-executive directors elsewhere,” he said.

Two existing board members, Michael Kirkwood and Peter Gibbs will step down next month.