Erikka Askeland: Despite the HBOS merger fiasco, Eric Daniels hit his targets

WHEN Eric Daniels leaves the glass and steel Lloyds Banking Group headquarters on 25 Gresham Street on Monday, his last as chief executive, he'll be able to light up a cigarette and ruminate on his achievements. Perhaps he'll be taking with him the sign on the wall of his office that said "no whingers".

He would have heard plenty of whingeing, and worse, during his tenure as chief executive as he led the once boring, conservative Lloyds TSB into a near-disastrous merger with HBoS.

But the American banker has remained fiercely unapologetic, mainly because he has achieved what he set out to do - which was to create the UK's biggest domestic bank. This was accomplished mainly by trampling on competition restrictions, loosened by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

He became only too well aware of what a handful HBoS turned out to be, with billions of toxic loans blowing a gaping hole in the bank's balance sheet.

It collapsed the combined group's share price and precipitated a massive government bail-out.

This won him little favour among shareholders and employees, either current ones or indeed the thousands that have since lost their jobs as a result of the merger.

But he was able to walk out in the knowledge that he left the bank profitable. Yesterday, he would have been gratified to report pre-tax profits of 2.2 billion - a sharp turnaround on the 6.3bn loss in 2009.

He will probably be pretty chuffed with himself that he rejected the government's asset protection scheme. He most certainly took the high road in this instance and the comparison with Royal Bank of Scotland, which chose to take government guarantees on further losses, is instructive. The RBS deal gave the taxpayer an 83 per cent share in the bank, and will cost the Gogar-based institution 2.5bn all told.

RBS paid 1.4bn last January, and another 700m last month. Without that insurance premium, RBS chief executive Stephen Hester too could have announced a profit for 2010, albeit a very thin one.

Daniels leaves behind him an often unhappy relationship with Scotland, where sentiment over the merger debacle ran high. Scotland was also the only regional Lloyds charitable foundation that dug its heels in when the bank tried to reduce its annual funding.

Daniels did, however, ensure there were some concessions to public anger at the loss of what was the first bank in the UK by making sure that its Bank of Scotland brand was maintained. But there was often a sense that he did this through gritted teeth. The thought might have crossed his mind that Scotland was full of whingers.

It will be his successor, the suave Antonio Horta-Osorio, who will have some serious work to do to try to maintain Daniels' legacy.Horta-Osorio is expected to be quick on the draw flogging the 600-odd branches that Europe said the bank had to sell.

But most believe that the government's Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) will force him to reduce its share of the UK banking market even further when it reports in September.

Even if the ICB does its worst to Lloyds, Daniels will have what is expected to be a 4m pension pot to console him.

Don't expect a rush of women in the boardroom

One final statement on Lord Davies' report this week that suggested FTSE-100 companies should have more women on their boards by 2015, and that is: don't hold your breath.

Both Aggreko and Weir Group (number of women on the board of either: None) have ruled out setting a 25 per cent target - albeit both industrial firms said they will of course consider any female candidates that crop up.

But as the pressure eases off over the percentage of women directors, I expect a significant number of listed company directors will breathe a hearty sigh of relief that the recommendations fall short of forcing them to create a greater gender balance in the boardroom.