Richard Pym AIB another hired corrupt British banks insider

Sceala Philosopher Location: Cardiff

If AIB starts a run of calling in debts, consequentially destroying more Irish business and Irish family homes, we will at least know who is behind it.

The Irish government or Patrick Honohan must be assuming that employing UK citizens from the UK financial services, will put Ireland back on track.!!!

as if hiring from a known part of the problem failed British banks was not enough!

UNBELIEVABLE

Hiring from one of the most corrupt sources if not the source of corrupt banking! British banks

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from watchdog site
"Richard Pym, Bradford & Bingley Chairman. Annual salary:'750,000. Guaranteed bonus (paid regardless of performance): 326,000. Bradford & Bingley was nationalised in September 2008."
total-banker.com/

this is what Independent td Shane Ross had to say about Richard Pym
shaneross.ie/new-plutocrat-joins-board-state-owned-aib/2/

New plutocrat joins board at State-owned AIB

The AIB press release is a masterpiece of camouflage. It bigs up Pym's tenure as boss of the cuddly Co-operative Banking Group which sounds more like a charity than a bank. Last week's media coverage (no doubt steered by AIB spinners) swallowed the 'new sheriff in town' line, even wheeling out tame analysts to welcome the appointment.
David Duffy, the silver-tongued and silver-haired spinner at the top of AIB, must have been salivating last Tuesday morning when he read the uncritical reception to Richard's arrival in AIB's Bankcentre. Most of the column inches were favourable.
Once again a big bank had pulled the wool over the eyes of the Irish people. The largest shareholder, Minister of Finance Michael Noonan, had approved the appointment after a brief meeting with the successful candidate. But how much about Richard did AIB tell the Minister?
We will probably never know. Last week there was an outbreak of omerta following the initially calm reaction to the appointment. AIB refused to expand on the press statement. The Department of Finance closed up like a clam. Under pressure, AIB insists that it used a recruitment agency, but refuses to name it or to give dates, times , process or number of candidates interviewed.
Inexplicably, AIB failed to advertise the post. It even blanks requests to reveal the new part-time chairman's package. Insiders have assured me that it breaches the '300,000 mark, exceeding the current chairman David Hodgkinson's fee. Ho-ho. Once again, the guys at the top of bankrupt AIB are getting rises. Share options for the chosen few cannot be far behind.
The AIB board, not Noonan, chose Pym. It is the worst appointment since Bank of Ireland installed arch insider Richie Boucher as chief executive or Archie Kane as governor. This selection has all the characteristics of an inside job.
Richard Pym is yet another insider. He is a member par excellence of the UK banker 'golden circle' with close Irish links. Just take a look at his connections: beside Richard as he squats in the chair of UKAR 'the UK's bad bank ' sits none other than Michael Buckley, former chief executive of guess who? Yes, none other than AIB.
When Richard is not busy chairing UKAR with Buckley by his side, he chairs the Co-op Bank where his colleagues include Dennis Holt, the one-time Bank of Ireland deputy governor and former board member of Lloyds TSB. Dennis sat on the board of Lloyds with none other than current Bank of Ireland governor Archie Kane.
Today, Kane chairs the B of I board seated beside another old Lloyds crony, Kent Atkinson. Atkinson shares the UKAR board with AIB's Buckley where of course AIB's Pym is in the chair. The circle is squared.
AIB did not look very far to find Richard Pym. He is well-connected to the Irish banking mafia.
Perhaps Richard is different? Perhaps he is not embedded in the dreaded banking culture of massive salaries, bonuses and options?
No doubt Michael Noonan demanded to know about his pedigree before approving the appointment?
Did the AIB board draw the transcript of the House of Commons Treasury Committee's hearings on the Banking Crisis to Noonan's attention?
In 2008 the committee interviewed Pym. He emerged battered and bruised. Pym had been chief executive of the basket case UK bank, Bradford and Bingley (B&B). In an eerie exchange with echoes of our own discredited regulator Patrick Neary ' Pym was asked why he had pronounced B&B 'a strongly capitalised bank' two days before the Financial Services Authority pulled the plug and launched a rescue package. His answer was unconvincing.
In a cruel reference to the UK weatherman who completely missed an approaching hurricane, Labour Party MP and committee chairman John McFall ridiculed Pym, dubbing him the 'Michael Fish of the financial services ' in that you suggested good financial weather shortly and everything fine and then you were struck down by a hurricane and a storm taking everything away.'
Pym was flattened. McFall witheringly went on to sympathise 'with people [small shareholders] who say that may have been misleading.'
At the same banking enquiry it emerged that Pym was taking a salary of 750,000 (â‚¬940,000) from the tottering B&B, plus a guaranteed bonus of 350,000 (â‚¬437,000).
Pym has become accustomed to monstrous salaries for top banking brass. Particularly for himself. Down at the supposedly philanthropic Co-operative Bank he receives a basic annual fee of 180,000.
But there is a strange little footnote to his fee entry in the annual report: Iaddition, the Bank agrees to pay an annual donation of 20,000 (â‚¬25k) to University of Warwick ( where he studied) and 100,000 (â‚¬125k) to High Barnet Baptist Church
Wow.
Pym is entitled to worship where he wishes, but I doubt if AIB shareholders will take kindly if he wants to donate their money to propagate his personal religious preferences or his pet charities.
In total he receives 300,000 ( â‚¬375,000) for the gig at the Co-op Bank. AIB has confessed that it is basing the chairmanï¿½s fee (agreed with Pym) on his current pay from the Co-op. It will be interesting to see if he has asked them to send on part of it to a small religious community in Dublin. What would Noonan think of that?
No doubt the Minister is in the dark about many of Pym's peculiarities. Perhaps AIB has not told him about the booty Pym earned at Alliance and Leicester (A&L) where he was chief executive from 2002-07. Today he is reported as receiving an A&L pension of 300,000 (375,000). Not bad on top of his rich pickings (375,000) from the Co-op Bank and his 237,000 (296,000) for chairing UKAR Bank. Not to mention incidental earnings from other sources.
Pym set out from Alliance and Leicester on the long gravy train journey that led to AIB . According to the Observer newspaper, he held options over 440,000 shares in A&L in 2005 and another 300,000 shares under the bank's long-term performance and share plans. He earned a salary of 619,000 (775,000) that year and trousered a bonus of 575,000 (720,000). In 2003 he earned 996,000 (1.25m), up from 948,000 (1.19m) in 2002. At the same time he pocketed generous share options. He was comfortably clearing a million a year.
In 2007 Pym retired from A&L a very, very rich man. He left the bank on a high following seemingly good results. Like so many other banks, the figures flattered only to deceive.
He had escaped, blowing his own trumpet about the bank's future, just before the collapse. Once again he had failed to forecast the hurricane ' or even a small storm.
The hurricane hit A&L in 2008. It was a direct result of Pym's policies. He had chased other banks like Northern Rock ,approving insane lending including 125pc mortgages. A&L hit the buffers. In 2008 it reported losses of 1.3bn after a four fold jump in bad debts , many incurred during his time in the saddle. In the autumn of 2008 A&L was rescued from ignominy by the Spanish Bank Santander.
Richard Pym's legacy at Alliance &Leicester is shameful. It makes him highly unsuitable to take on the beleaguered AIB. Today he has been reinvented at AIB as the troubleshooter from the UK. Perhaps the board of AIB think that if he emerges, an unknown from overseas, he will be greeted as some sort of reforming hero.
If Michael Noonan knew of Pym's history he should never have appointed the UK plutocrat. If he was not told the full story he should sack the entire board of AIB.

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Richard Pym AIB another hired corrupt British banks insider