Benny Higgins

Last updated

Benny Higgins
Born
Bernard Franklin Higgins

12 December 1960
Glasgow, Scotland
NationalityScottish
Alma mater Glasgow University
Occupation Banker
Employer CEO of Morrisons
Known forFormer Chief exec RBS NatWest Retail Banking

Benny Higgins FRSE is a Scottish banker, and is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Tesco Bank. [1]

Contents

Upbringing

He was brought up in Prospecthill Circus in Toryglen, Glasgow, Scotland. [2] [3] He attended Holyrood Secondary School in the city. [4]

Career

After achieving a degree in mathematics at The University of Glasgow, Higgins began his career in 1983 at Standard Life in Edinburgh, qualifying as an actuary and then becoming an investment manager.

Higgins left in 1997 for the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he became chief executive of Retail Banking and was involved in setting up Tesco Personal Finance. He was part of the team (alongside Fred Goodwin and George Mathewson) that acquired and integrated NatWest in 2000. At the time of his departure from RBS at the end of 2005 he was chief executive of the Retail Bank which covered both the RBS and NatWest brands.

In January 2006, he took the helm of the Retail Business at HBOS. However, he departed at the end of 2007. During his tenure, Higgins' conservative mortgage strategy led to a fall in the share of the market for new mortgage lending from 16 per cent to 8 per cent, although on announcing Higgins' resignation Hornby explicitly denied any link. [5] Analysts were less kind at the time. "Benny Higgins is carrying the can ... for the mortgage debacle in the first half of this year," one said. "He was supposed to be the next big thing for HBOS, coming in from RBS to shake up the HBOS business. Obviously he's been given his marching orders." [6]

After a short sabbatical, Higgins returned to banking, taking the position of CEO of Tesco Personal Finance, later renamed to Tesco Bank, following Tesco's buy out of RBS's share of their 50:50 joint venture on 28 July 2008. [7] In 2009, he launched Putting Tesco into Banking and Insurance, a book setting out his vision for Tesco "to become a natural provider of financial services for Tesco Customers". As of 2017, he was chairman of the Regulatory Technology company Kyckr. [8]

In September 2017, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that Higgins would assist the Scottish Government in establishing a Scottish National Investment Bank for Scottish infrastructure investment.

In 2019 he became chairman of the Duke of Buccleuch's estates company, managing the extensive portfolio of property and land owned by the family. [9]

Honours and awards

In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [10]

Other interests

Higgins was a keen footballer and played for Glasgow Celtic, captaining the youth team in the late 1970s. [3] In 2017, he took on an unpaid role as chairman of the National Galleries of Scotland, [3] and the following year accepted a similar position at Sistema Scotland, a children's orchestra charity (succeeding Richard Holloway). [11]

At an HBOS investor annual results event, Peter Cummings, his then corporate counterpart, told analysts he felt "very, very optimistic" about the future. Higgins followed up by relating the story of Pollyanna, the over-optimistic girl who ended up falling out of a tree. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NatWest Group</span> British banking and insurance holding company

NatWest Group PLC is a British banking and insurance holding company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank of Scotland, which later became part of Lloyds Banking Group. It offered commercial and corporate banking services under the Bank of Scotland brand and retail banking services under the Halifax brand. From 10 February 2010 the bank no longer accepted new business and it ceased to operate as a licensed bank on 31 December 2010. The assets of the bank were merged into Bank of Scotland plc.

Frederick Anderson Goodwin FRSE FCIBS is a Scottish chartered accountant and former banker who was chief executive officer (CEO) of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) between 2001 and 2009.

Tesco Personal Finance plc, trading as Tesco Bank, is a British retail bank which was formed in July 1997. The bank was formed as part of a 50:50 joint venture between The Royal Bank of Scotland and Tesco, the largest supermarket in the United Kingdom, employing 2,800 people.

Sir George Ross Mathewson, is a Scottish businessman. He is best known for transforming the Scottish bank The Royal Bank of Scotland from a struggling regional player into a quasi global bank with parallels to Citigroup or HSBC. He was described by the Sunday Herald, as "banking's answer to Bruce Springsteen".

Sir Thomas Fulton Wilson McKillop, FRS, FRSE is a Scottish chemist, who was CEO of AstraZeneca PLC from 1999 until 2006 and chairman of the RBS Group from 2006 until 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgin Money UK</span> UK-based bank and financial services company

Virgin Money UK plc is a British banking and financial services company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Australian Securities Exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam and Company</span> Scottish wealth management company

Adam and Company Investment Management Limited is a wealth management company based in Edinburgh, Scotland offering discretionary investment management and wealth planning services to high-net-worth clients in the UK.

Sir Angus McFarlane McLeod Grossart was a Scottish businessman who was the founder, chairman and executive director of Edinburgh-based merchant bank Noble Grossart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Bank of Scotland</span> Scottish bank

The Royal Bank of Scotland plc is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest and Ulster Bank. The Royal Bank of Scotland has around 700 branches, mainly in Scotland, though there are branches in many larger towns and cities throughout England and Wales. The bank is completely separate from the fellow Edinburgh-based bank, the Bank of Scotland, which pre-dates the Royal Bank by 32 years. The Royal Bank of Scotland was established to provide a bank with strong Hanoverian and Whig ties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Hornby</span> English businessman

Andy Hornby is an English businessman, currently chief executive of The Restaurant Group, a British chain of restaurants and public houses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NatWest</span> British retail and commercial bank

National Westminster Bank Public Limited Company, trading as NatWest, is a major retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom based in London, England. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. In 2000, it became part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which was re-named NatWest Group in 2020. Following ringfencing of the group's core domestic business, the bank became a direct subsidiary of NatWest Holdings; NatWest Markets comprises the non-ringfenced investment banking arm. The British government currently owns 19.97% of NatWest Group after spending £45 billion ($61.87 billion) bailing out the lender in 2008; the proportion at one point was 54.7%. NatWest International is a trading name of RBS International, which also sits outside the ringfence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HBOS</span> United Kingdom banking and insurance company

HBOS plc is a banking and insurance company in the United Kingdom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group, having been taken over in January 2009. It was the holding company for Bank of Scotland plc, which operated the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands in the UK, as well as HBOS Australia and HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Limited, the group's insurance division.

Sir John Oliver Frank Kingman KCB FRS has been Chair of Legal & General PLC since 2016. He is also Chair of Barclays UK, the ring-fenced retail bank of Barclays PLC, and a member of the Barclays PLC board. He was previously Chair of Tesco Bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lloyds Banking Group</span> British financial institution

Lloyds Banking Group plc is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds Bank was founded in 1765 but the wider Group's heritage extends over 320 years, dating back to the founding of the Bank of Scotland by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695.

Sir John Calman Shaw was a Scottish businessman, chairman of the board of directors and Governor of the Bank of Scotland from 1999–2001, deputy governor from 1991–1999 and a non-executive director from 1990–2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ross McEwan</span> New Zealand banker

Ross Maxwell McEwan is a New Zealand banker, and former chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director of National Australia Bank.

Dame Susan Ilene Rice, Lady Rice, is a British banker, company and charity director and Chair of Scottish Water, Business Stream, North American Income Trust, and non-executive director of the Office for Budget Responsibility. In 2000 she became the first women to lead a British clearing bank.

James Simpson Fleming FRSE (1828-1899) was a Scottish lawyer and banker. From 1858 to 1871 he was a partner in the legal firm of McGrigor, Stevenson & Fleming. In the 1870s he was responsible for introducing the Royal Bank of Scotland to London.

References

  1. ↑ "Movers and Shakers". The Times . Archived from the original on 12 June 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
  2. ↑ "A breath of fresh air for HBOS's boardroom". Telegraph. 6 January 2006. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 "Chairman of Scotland's national galleries inspired by his grandfather". Evening Times. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  4. ↑ "Famous ex-pupils pass on wisdom". Evening Times. 26 March 2007. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  5. ↑ "HBOS retail business gets revamp". BBC News. 10 August 2007. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
  6. ↑ Patrick Collinson (10 August 2007). "HBOS retail chief in surprise departure". The Guardian . Retrieved 7 November 2016.
  7. ↑ "Regulatory News". Tesco plc. 28 July 2008. Archived from the original on 17 September 2008. Retrieved 25 December 2009.
  8. ↑ Tesco banking chief Benny Higgins named non-executive chair at RegTech startup Kyckr, 5 December 2017
  9. ↑ "Duke of Buccleuch steps down as head of family firm". Business Insider. 6 February 2019. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  10. ↑ "Mr Bernard Franklin Higgins FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  11. ↑ "Benny Higgins named new chairman of Sistema Scotland". Business Insider. 13 November 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  12. ↑ "Interview: Benny Higgins - Tesco banks on this charming man". The Scotsman . Retrieved 7 November 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.