Questions raised over Crombie's RBS role

Published on Thursday 18 March 2010 21:38

HE WAS brought in as the "investors' champion" who would prove troubled Royal Bank of Scotland had moved away from the era of Sir Fred Goodwin.

But the role of Sir Sandy Crombie, a former chief executive of Standard Life, was coming under fresh scrutiny from shareholders last night, after news of the latest bumper pension deal for one of the bank's directors.

Sir Sandy, one of Edinburgh's most respected financial figures, was recruited to the RBS board last year as "senior independent director". One of his key roles is to keep in touch with investors and reassure them the board will properly police the activities of the bank's senior executives.

As it emerged last night that one of those executives, Gordon Pell, would be walking away with a half-million-pound pension deal this month, investors expressed doubts over that role.

Eric Chalker, a spokesman for the UK Shareholders' Association, said: "It would be interesting to know what he (Sir Sandy] has had to say about these pension arrangements. The fact is that we are still not satisfied that there are adequate checks and balances, nor that private investors are being given any regard at all."

Sir Sandy, who was chief executive of Standard Life Investments before taking the top job at the firm, was one of the few senior figures in the financial services industry in Scotland who was untainted by the meltdown in the sector.

He is now part of a slimmed-down RBS board of nine non-executive members. The previous board of 17 was widely seen to have been too cumbersome, failing to question Sir Fred's ambitious acquisitive instincts.

Despite the criticism of the pay-out to Mr Pell, Treasury sources last night suggested that his retirement deal was watertight.