Bostock’s defection hits RBS shares

OUTGOING Royal Bank of Scotland finance director Nathan Bostock has emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Ana Botin as boss of Santander UK if she succeeds her father Emilio as chairman of the Spanish bank.

Nathan Bostock is tipped for the UK top job at Santander. Picture: Getty

Santander confirmed today that Bostock, a former senior Santander UK director, was rejoining the bank as chief risk officer and deputy chief executive under Botin.

RBS’s shares fell 9.8p, or almost 3 per cent, to 326.9p on disappointment that Bostock, a key figure alongside new chief executive Ross McEwan in the restructuring of the bank’s toxic loans into a separate internal “bad” bank, was leaving.

One institutional investor in RBS said: “The departure is a major inconvenience. Recruiting senior people is a complicated and time-consuming process, and to go through that, only to lose the hire within a matter of months, must be very disappointing.”

Chirantan Barua, a banking analyst with broker Bernstein, said: “Is he [Bostock] going for the top job in Santander UK? It’s common knowledge that the CEO of Santander UK is seen as one of the likely candidates for group CEO. In that case, Nathan definitely fits the bill.”

McEwan has said he will unveil his strategy for RBS in February.